Brain Injury Treatment

A brain injury will affect an individual in many different ways. It is imperative that rehabilitation and treatment is tailored to that particular individual. A treatment programme will need to change to recognise progress made or indeed, lack of progress. A person with a brain injury may therefore use a number of different facilities at different stages of recovery.

The goal of rehabilitation is to help the individual to regain as much of their pre-accident life as possible and to provide them with a level of independent functioning. Rehabilitation will seek to assist the body’s natural healing process as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Stages of treatment

Intensive Care Unit

It is here that someone with a brain injury may well be medically stabilised and managed. The individual may be in a coma and medically unstable at this time. The individual may be attached to a ventilator, assisting breathing, an intravenous drip to delivery medication and fluids, a catheter to collect and monitor a person’s urine output, a nasogastric tube to deliver medication and an EKG machine to monitor their heart. Once medically stabilised, the individual may be able to move on to a Rehabilitation Unit.

Rehabilitation Unit

Here a team of professionals will seek to work with that individual to assist them in achieving the highest level of independence possible. The individual may have to re-learn basic activities such as dressing, eating, toileting, washing, cook a meal and inter-reacting with other individuals.

Members of the Rehabilitation Team will include Occupational Therapist, Neuro Psychologist, Speech & Language Therapist, Rehabilitation Nurses and Carers. The aim will be to rehabilitate the individual back into the Community. However, on occasion, the aim is to allow that person to achieve the best possible outcome which may well mean that they will remain within a Rehabilitation Unit, in the long term.

In the alternative, the individual may be able to rehabilitate in the home with services brought in, in respect of occupational therapy and care. An individual assessment will have to be made, which can take some weeks, by an Neuro Rehabilitation Unit as to the best possible care that ought to be provided to that particular individual.

Rehabilitation may never in fact end. Progress may be slow and quality of life is critical. Our Brain Injury Lawyers will seek to ensure that all that can be done is done.