• 12
  • January
    2012

New psychological research strives to help people overcome irreversible loss after a brain injury - both the brain-injured and the non-injured spouse or partner - by focusing on recreating a new relationship rather than focusing on what was lost.

Because, as Sarah Wheaton writes for the New York Times, people facing brain injury are sometimes "profoundly changed," meaning that some injured people (and their partners) will never be able to recover what they've lost.

What exactly do brain injured people lose? It depends, of course, on the severity of the trauma and what areas of the brain were injured. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, for example, had been shot in the head in the infamous gunman attack in Tucson, Arizona, yet she survived. Not only did Giffords survive, she seems to be on the road to at least a partial recovery.

What often goes unsaid, however, is the intangible impact on people - the impact that goes beyond the obvious difficulties with speech and walking - like personality changes, which can do "irreparable" harm to marriages and other relationships.

As Wheaton reports, the wife of a husband who suffered brain injury says, "The word that describes it is just 'lonely.' My life is sitting in the living room quiet while my husband just sleeps."

Source: When Injuries to the Brain Tear at Hearts