The behavioural and emotional complications of traumatic brain injury

It is hard to imagine what it must be like for an individual following the personal crisis and catastrophe that ensues as a result of a serious traumatic brain injury. The individual is confronted with a huge range of alterations in his or her normal functioning, operating at the biological, psychological and social levels. From the neurological perspective a range of primary and secondary neurological events occurs, culminating in pain, seizures, compromise in movement, sensation, perception, orthopaedic and other injuries; neuropsychological compromise including disorientation, confusion, retrograde and anterograde memory deficits, decrease in attention and concentration, slowed speed of information processing; executive deficits including concreteness in idea generation, disinhibition and impulsivity; psychological deficits including diminished self-esteem, loneliness, a renewed dependency on parents or spouse, infantilization by the wider community, diminution of sexual functioning and interest,depression, anxiety and social isolation; and economic deficits including loss of income, loss of one's employment as a defining features of one's social persona, medical costs, loss of treasured interests or hobbies and the unenviable role of the plaintiff in any medico-legal proceedings surrounding the claim. All of these changes are also occurring to an individual who has just had a near-death experience, culminating not too surprisingly in the reflections Who I am? and Why I am here?.