Head Injury Recovery in Real Life

Head Injury Recovery in Real Life combines a thorough review of scientific and clinical background information about recovery from traumatic brain injury with a set of autobiographical accounts of 12 of the 18 best long-term recoveries from a population of 1800 discharged patients at an advanced cognitive rehabilitation program.

The chapters describe what these patients had to overcome and how they did so. The recoveries are remarkable for the seriousness of the brain damage and the sustained demonstration of advanced executive and cognitive skills shown during the recovery. Brief sketches of 15 unsuccessful recoveries are also included to provide a counterpoint. Long-term recovery is poorly understood by stakeholders of all kinds, including researchers, medical practitioners, family members, and survivors. A rich understanding of successful recoveries helps members of each of these groups to more effectively examine or achieve recovery, while providing vivid and cogent guidance for students in the rehabilitation professions—speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychology, rehabilitation counseling, nursing, and physical medicine and rehabilitation.

Introduction

• How we learned what we know about recovery
• How recovery works—in the clinic and in real life
  • Recovery depends on how severe the injury is
  • Recovery depends on what kind of person got the injury
  • The mental functions that recover over time
  • The mental functions that do not recover: The lasting deficits
  • Functioning in real life: The lasting ability limitations
  • The opportunity to participate in a normal life
  • Adaptation to the injury
  • Accelerated recovery in the unreal world of the clinic
  • Why recovery can be studied properly only in real life
• Fifteen sketches of failed recovery

Great recoveries as individual efforts

• Reggie, high school/college student
• Riley, construction subcontractor/speech-language pathology student
• Hillary, graduate student/wellness instructor/middle school teacher
• Deloris, school media/computer specialist
• Stephanie, business executive
• Faith, community programs manager
• Rachel, psychotherapist
• Abdullah, attorney at law
• Story of Samantha

Great recoveries as partnerships with family

• Brooke (high school/college/graduate student) and Charlotte (her mother)
• Tom (construction worker) and Dawn (his wife)
• Jomo (high-technology department director) and Wengari (his wife)
• Ernie (factory designer/manager and business owner) and Helga (his wife)

Conclusion

• Brief sketches of three more great recoveries
• Lessons of the 30 recoveries

References
Index