What can one expect to happen?


 * Best Practices:


 * When one suffers from a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), the recovery is a lifelong process and there is no cure.
 * The severity of the injury will depend upon the rehabilitation and road to recovery that one will embark.


 * Generally there are two scenarios: one is that an individual has suffered a TBI due to an Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA)
 * and the severity of injuries is enough to have them rushed to emergency at the closest hospital. Once the individual has been stabilized
 * and all of the physical injuries have been dealt with, then they are rushed to either an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or to the neurological-
 * rehabilitation unit. If the major injuries tend to be more physical then neurological, then the individual will be sent to a unit at
 * the hospital to accommodate those injuries. Once the critical point of time is over and the individual is stabilized, then the
 * intensive rehabilitation process will begin.


 * Sometimes this process is a combination of cognitive rehabilitation and physical rehabilitation or it may just be
 * cognitive rehabilitation. In some cases an individual may have to re-learn how to walk, talk, dress themselves, eat and function
 * “normally”. In other cases, it may just be severe memory loss so rehabilitation will be to re-train the brain to compensate for
 * the memory loss.


 * For many individuals there will be a team of specialists working with them, occupational therapists, recreational therapists,
 * speech therapists, physical therapists, neurologists and physiatrists, social workers and sometimes psychiatrists. Initially the
 * team will work with the individual in the hospital and then as it comes closer to discharge, the care will be transferred to an
 * outpatient team that will follow through.


 * If an individual has a lesser degree of head injury, then their time in hospital may be less and the assessments and treatment
 * may differ. If the MVA resulted in a concussion or a lesser head injury, an individual may be discharged shortly after arriving
 * at the hospital or they may be released on scene (rarely happens). In this event, it is not always as obvious as to what has
 * happened and there can be many struggles and frustrations for an individual if they have not been diagnosed with the brain injury.


 * Once the individual finds the resources that are available, then they will also enter the world of therapy and be followed by an
 * outpatient team of specialists. From a practitioner’s point of view, there is a very concrete set of procedures with few to no gaps
 * and everything runs smoothly. If one was to talk to a family or a survivor of brain injury, the frustrations are stronger with
 * concern over the lack of commonality in health care from province to province, how some provinces have better supports and services
 * then others and how some have more leading research and knowledge then others do.