Head Injury Recovery in Real Life

Head Injury Recovery in Real Life combines a thorough review of scientific and clinical background information about recovery from traumatic brain injury with a set of autobiographical accounts of 12 of the 18 best long-term recoveries from a population of 1800 discharged patients at an advanced cognitive rehabilitation program. The chapters describe what these patients had to overcome and how they did so. The recoveries are remarkable for the seriousness of the brain damage and the sustained demonstration of advanced executive and cognitive skills shown during the recovery. Brief sketches of 15 unsuccessful recoveries are also included to provide a counterpoint. Long-term recovery is poorly understood by stakeholders of all kinds, including researchers, medical practitioners, family members, and survivors. A rich understanding of successful recoveries helps members of each of these groups to more effectively examine or achieve recovery, while providing vivid and cogent guidance for students in the rehabilitation professions speech-language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychology, rehabilitation counseling, nursing, and physical medicine and rehabilitation.