When my husband, Ken Willingham, suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a result of a hit-and-run accident in December 2003, I became very interested in learning more about TBI and the brain. Each day, before and after going to see Ken at the hospital and later at the rehab center, I spent hours reading and researching. As you might imagine, there are a wealth of resources available on the Internet, and some of them are listed below.

I also wrote about our experience in an essay  titled “Brain Wreck.” It can be found in my book, What I Thought I Knew. (Read excerpt.)

Journaling workshop and book for people with brain injury
In 2006, I began facilitating a journaling group for TBI survivors here in Tucson called “After Brain Injury: Telling Your Story.” Typically, it runs for six weeks, with one 90-minute session a week, and it can also be done in a condensed version. In this casual workshop, participants use a journaling technique called freewriting to tell their own stories of life after brain injury. They also find companionship and comfort in talking with other survivors who understand, firsthand, what they have experienced.

In 2009 the workshop became the book After Brain Injury: Telling Your Story from Lash & Associates Publishing/Training.

Some basic facts about traumatic brain injury
In its simplest terms, a traumatic brain injury is condition caused by a head injury that results in lasting damage to the brain. It can be a closed-head injury or one that pierces the skull and penetrates the brain. Conditions such as stroke and brain tumors are not, technically speaking, a TBI, although they may cause the same kinds of damage.

Depending on the damage to the brain, symptoms of a TBI can be mild, moderate, or severe. With a  mild TBI, including a concussion, a person may remain conscious or may experience a loss of consciousness for a short time, even just a few seconds. A mild TBI may also result in headache, confusion, blurred vision, dizziness, ringing in the ears, fatigue, lightheadedness, a bad taste in the mouth, memory problems, and inability to concentrate or think clearly. These symptoms may not appear for some time after the injury, making it difficult to diagnose. Even a mild TBI can cause life-long problems and disabilities.

With a moderate or severe TBI, these same symptoms may also appear, along with repeated nausea or vomiting, a headache that does not go away, inability to awaken, slurred speech, convulsions or seizures, weakness or numbness in arms or legs, dilation of one or both pupils, restlessness, agitation, loss of coordination, and increased confusion. Coma and death can also result.

Each year, an average of 1.4 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury—that’s one every 23 seconds. About 5 million of these survivors live with a disability because of the TBI.

Anything that causes trauma to the brain can cause a TBI. The list of causes includes falls; motor vehicle, bicycle, or vehicle-pedestrian accidents; sports; street violence; domestic abuse (including shaken baby syndrome); and, as we have become aware in recent years, exposure to blasts during war.

Blast injuries to the brain resulting from exposure to explosions have become common in the war in Iraq and to a lesser extent in Afghanistan. Even without visible wounds, military personnel close to a blast can suffer brain damage due to the intense changes in air pressure caused by the blast. As of January 2009, according to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America,between 10 and 20 percent of Iraq veterans, or 150,000 and 300,000 service members, have some level of TBI.

Half of all TBIs involve alcohol use, either by the victim or the person who caused the injury.

Web Sites
This is only a sampling of Web sites devoted to brain injury. If you would like to see others, simply search online for “traumatic brain injury” or “TBI.”

Brain Injury Association of America
http://www.biausa.org/
(See “State Offices” on this site also)

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tbi/tbi.htm

TBI Resource Guide