Mind Your Head Co-op

As a general rule, brain injuries improve rather than degrade. Unlike dementia or Alzheimer's, which get worse over time, brain injury's symptoms usually improve with time.

But I'm Getting Worse! What's up?

The experience of things getting worse is usually explained by a few possibilities.

Early in a Brain injury:

• In the first six weeks or so after a brain injury occurs, symptoms may appear.
• As a person heals and feels better and resumes more activities, symptoms may “suddenly appear” because the brain simply isn't ready or capable (yet) of doing those things that way. Learning what overstimulates the brain and how to manage brain energy becomes key to learning how to move forward.

Over Time, After a Brain Injury

• Could easily be over stimulation from new stressors, or activities. Learning what overstimulates the brain and how to manage brain energy becomes key to learning how to move forward.
• A new injury (concussion), illness, tumor, or condition may have occurred. If the person with brain injury has poor memory, they may not remember it, or think it was inconsequential. This can be tricky to understand, because brain injury can effect most things about us, so new symptoms may easily be interpreted as brain injury related when they aren't. The key is to note if over stimulation/brain energy debt are causal to the symptoms or a result of them, and that can be very had to do. Working with your medical team is key to sorting out what is effecting what.

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