Unmasking the Invisible: Recognizing and Understanding the Multifaceted Impact of Brain Injuries

In some circles, brain injury is called “the invisible injury” because, unless you know what you’re looking at, there’s a good chance that a person’s brain injury will go unrecognized. If, on the other hand, you work with brain injury survivors the signs, symptoms, and behaviors of someone living with a brain injury are not so invisible.

Brain injury affects four distinct areas of a person’s life, including the cognitive, physical, behavioral, and emotional domains. The way that a brain injury is expressed within each of these domains is unique to each brain injury survivor emphasizing the adage that I mentioned in an earlier blog post which says, “If you’ve seen one brain injury…you’ve seen one brain injury.”

In other words, while there is a “constellation of symptoms” associated with brain injury, they are not expressed in the same way for every brain injury survivor.

In the Cognitive domain, a brain injury survivor might experience:

• Difficulty with speech and language
• Difficulty with organization
• Difficulty with attention
• Difficulty with short-term and long-term memory
• Difficulty with hearing
• Light sensitivity

In the Physical domain, a brain injury survivor might experience:

• Slowed movement
• Coordination problems
• Headaches
• Balance problems
• Fatigue
• Vision problems
• Generalized pain complaints

In the Behavioral domain, a brain injury survivor might experience or manifest:

• Aggressive behavior
• Inappropriate impulsivity
• Difficulty with anger management
• Challenges with otherwise understood social skills

Finally, in the Emotional domain, a brain injury survivor might experience:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Mood swings
• Blunted emotions

This is hardly the complete list of possible signs, symptoms, and behaviors associated with brain injury, but it is a good place to start. When you are with a brain injury survivor and they exhibit any of these, understand a couple of things: The problems being experienced by the person are a result of their brain injury, and you are SEEING the brain injury through those problems.

When you understand this and can recognize the signs, symptoms, and behaviors associated with brain injury, you are helping not only the brain injury survivor, but you are also helping society recognize brain injuries. This is core to our work at CBIRT. We are pulling away the cloak of invisibility that has shrouded brain injury for far too long. If you’re seeing it, then it’s visible. And if it’s visible, we should understand it, and, most importantly, do something about it.