Accidents like car crashes, falls and blows to the head can cause severe damage to the brain tissueleading to disruption of your life. Such a serious injury can affect the brain and the patient’sability of thinking, socializing, and moving.
It is important to be aware of the symptoms of brain injury before the diagnosis and treatment procedures begin. These include –
1. Physical –Weakness in hands and legs can result indifferent kinds of difficulties like walking, standing, sitting, moving, balancing, disuse atrophy,and spasticity. It also results in the inability to speak and swallow.
2. Sensory–Facing problems in sense of touch, hearing and vision.
3. Cognitive – Inability in paying attention, performing simple tasks or remembering and personality changes.
With proper rehabilitative care and optimal therapy, improvement of the above-mentioned conditions is indeed possible. A rehabilitation program will help you in numerous ways for enhancing your physical independence. Setting realistic goals is necessary as it will ensure swift recovery and will further help in making regular tasks easier for you!
Rehabilitation entails appropriate task-specific exercise. These includetraining in activities of daily living, electrotherapy, psychological counseling, robotic training, use of orthotics, etc. Also part of the rehab program is speech and swallow therapy, prevention and treatment of secondary complications. Your condition can improve in the following ways with proper physical therapy and rehabilitation –
• Progress in moving or standing without support
• Improvement in joint and muscle flexibility
• Restoring functional abilities likeeating, talking,dressing, using toilets, bathing,speech
• Simplifying activities which require balancing and coordination
• Enhancing energy and strength along with diminishing fatigue
• Easing the return to fitness activities like sports, exercise etc.
In the initial days, after the brain injury, you might need assistance for performing simple activities like eating, getting out of bed, etc. As therapy progresses patients are made to perform more complex tasks, sometimes with the assistance of orthosis and assistive devices.
Thus, the prime aim of rehabilitationis to lessen the paralyzing effects which can be a result of severe brain injury. Rehabilitation programs also help in restoring the social, professional, family life of patient to the maximum possible extent in the shortest possible time.
