Traumatic Brain Injury: Damaged Neural Connections Can Be Rewired

Jun 17, 2013 by

Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of death for persons under 45 years of age, with someone sustaining a TBI every 15 seconds. In America alone 5 million people suffer some form of TBI disability.

When the brain is injured, neural connections are damaged and how we process information is impacted, which is why TBI patients often struggle with cognitive functions such as thinking, memory, reason, information processing, and communication.

Most rehabilitation efforts focus on physical, occupational, speech/language, psychological and/or drug therapies. During this process, expectations are adjusted, life skills and motor skills are relearned, and accommodations and modifications are explored.

Cognitive therapies take a different approach, stimulating the brain to physically reorganize itself so that one or all of the following occurs:

  • Injured neural connections are repaired
  • Brand new connections are created
  • Information is rerouted around damaged areas

For someone with a traumatic brain injury, this new approach offers extraordinary hope for dramatic or full recovery. To learn more about how brain training can be life changing for people with TBI, take a look at this report.