Don’t Give Up If You or Someone You Know Has a Traumatic Brain Injury

When someone has a traumatic brain injury, such as from a car accident, a fall, a sports injury to name just a few, they may get to a point in their physical therapy where they are told that they won’t see any further improvement in their abilities. They may be told that they’ll never walk again or be able to do activities that were simple to do before the brain trauma. 

With increased severity of the brain injury, the person can experience not only physical impairments, but also cognitive impairments, problem-solving challenges, sleep disturbances, and depression.

This also can mean that the person may be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their life.

It turns out diagnosis of “we can’t do anything more for you may not be true!”

University of Utah Health (UoUH) has been taking these types of patients and are giving their life back to them.

Staff at HoHU want the patient to be active so that the patient will continue to do, at a slightly reduced level, their current routine, exercise, movements so long as they don’t experience an increase in headaches, dizziness, nausea, etc. These routine activities can increase the blood flowing to the brain. This helps to drive the patient neural recovery.

Treatments that UoUH use in the healing process can include physical medicine and rehab/physiatry, rehab psychology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, social work, and other medical providers. They make sure all these providers are communicating to enhance your individualized care. 

As an example,  HoUH had a patient in a wheelchair who had been told he may never walk again. After two years of pretty intensive care for this person, he was able to drive, walk, and live by himself. While he still has difficulty speaking, he got a major portion of his life back!

Amazingly, if your insurance runs out, they’ll cover the cost of a patient’s physical, occupational, speech therapy and specialized equipment. Their commitment is really to  help people get back to independence and their previous life!

So…if you know someone with traumatic brain injury, you might want to have them contact UoUH to find out if there are any facilities in your area that they can recommend for you to pursue. Their phone number is 801 581-2121.
(Reported University of Utah Health, 12/6/21)