If you have suffered a traumatic brain injury, this can be one of the most difficult times of your life. It’s important to understand many of changes that your body will go through and what may affect you in the process. There may be behavioral changes you can expect to occur, but did you know that even the weather can have an impact on you if you’ve suffered this type of serious injury.

Cloudy and Rainy Weather

It is common for people who have a brain injury to be more anxious and depressed. The severity of the injury is sure to impact the extent of this unwanted condition.

Additionally, if the weather is cloudy and raining, this can increase the chances of dealing with depression and it may be worse as a result. Gloomy weather can have a negative impact on people who are dealing with a health crisis even more so than on healthy individuals.

Sunny Weather

It has been stated that sunlight is the best anti-depressant on the market. One thing is for certain, and that is that it has the least side effects and is easily obtainable without a prescription. This is because the rays of the sun can increase the serotonin levels in your body, and this can work to decrease your depression.

Sunlight has a large dose of Vitamin D in it, and this is necessary for the body to function at its best. This vitamin has also been proven to decrease anxiety and depression in people who may be dealing with a traumatic brain injury.

Be sure to visit our online community at TryMunity which can help you cope with your brain injury. This is a supportive group of people who have undergone this condition and are here to assist you with encouragement and support.

It is common for people who suffer from traumatic brain injury to go through many behavioral changes later. Each individual is different and changes will vary greatly. However, it’s possible for mild concussions to alter the personality of the person. Knowing the ways that you may be affected can be helpful to you and others that provide you with the support you need at this difficult time.

Types of Behavioral Problems

There are a number of behavioral changes associated with TBI, and these are listed below:

• Social behavior changes
• Being more emotional
• More difficulty concentrating

Neurological dysfunction is at the cause of these problems occurring, and the extent of the changes will vary.

Mood Swings

Many brain injuries affect the frontal lobe of the brain, damaging the areas involved in emotional control. Afterwards, sufferers may have rapidly changing emotions, regularly going from angry to happy to crying in only a matter of moments. Some TBI survivors have difficulties controlling their emotions and impulses with increased stress, which is worsened by cognitive problems and loss of independence.

The period after a traumatic brain injury can be frustrating and scary for a survivor. They often do not understand what happened to them, and realizing that they have losses in memory or motor skills can be upsetting. The best way caregivers can help is to remain patient and supportive throughout the healing and recovery processes.

Anxiety & Depression

Anxiety and depression are common symptoms for people who have suffered a brain injury. This can stem from the magnitude of the injury and not being able to perform routine tasks as easily. It is common for individuals with the most severe injury to be extremely depressed and experience greater amounts of anxiety.

The best thing caregivers can do is to provide support by saying positive things and being there for the person with the injury.

Recognition of Problems

It’s important for caregivers to watch friends or family members who have suffered a brain injury. This will be helpful in seeing things that the injured may not fully recognize as being problematic.

Taking the time to look for major and minor changes in your loved ones behavior can help identify these and work toward finding solutions.

At TryMunity, we know that family members and friends are the support system of the person who has the brain injury. Be sure to learn ways to help this individual recover quickly and offer the needed love and support for a full recovery.

Our online support community is made for brain injury survivors to provide the necessary encouragement to assist with a full recovery. Be sure to visit us and read some of the inspiring stories that others offer and share yours, as well.

It is important if you have suffered a brain injury to rely on other parts of your brain to function for you. The damaged region of the brain can take time to completely heal if it’s going to do so. There is a variety of games and activities that are ideal to help you if you have suffered a brain injury. These are useful in allowing you to remember things you may have forgotten and are imperative to help you improve your critical thinking skills over time.

Engaging the Brain with Games

The more engaging the game is, the greater benefit you will have in improving your brain injury. Studies show that games and activities are an ideal way to help you improve your overall cognitive function when done routinely by the brain injury patient.

Games that may have been more popular in earlier years are ideal for people who have suffered a brain injury. Below are some ideal games to try:

• Crossword, Sudoku, and Jigsaw Puzzles
• Card games like Solitaire, Go Fish! and Crazy Eights
• Drawing activities like Hangman and Mazes
• Electronic games like Simon

Apps That Enhance Memory and Critical Thinking

Due to the numerous technological advances, you can download a number of games to your laptop or tablet for free. There are others that are offered at a low cost and can prove to be very useful to you, as well.

There are hundreds of apps marketed as memory enhancers. Here are four to consider:

• Memory Screening Test – Designed for use in acute care settings, this app is used by healthcare professionals to access levels of memory impairment. The app presents series of images to analyze and costs $19.99.
• Memory – Memory is a simple, $0.99 app in which players match pairs of pictures that appear on a grid, engaging the part of the brain that processes images. Users can select various levels of difficulty, ranging from 15 pairs of images to 150 pairs.
• Twinoo Brain Training – Twinoo combines numbers and colors to improve critical thinking skills. This free app presents math problems on one side of the screen and color combinations on the other, engaging both sides of the brain.
• MatchDrops – This free app presents images of colored balloons and asks users to memorize the sequence. After a few moments, the balloons begin to move to music, testing the user’s ability to retain information.

Playing games to improve brain function should never feel like a chore. A study conducted in Sweden in 2005 showed that brain-training can alter the brain’s dopamine receptors, not only improving the brain’s ability to retain information but improving the person’s mood as well. Games that are interesting, fun, and engaging are likely to produce the best results.

Help us at TryMunity by giving ideas of the games that have proved helpful to you. We believe in the power of community if you are suffering from a brain injury and simply want to show our support. Join us today by signing up online.

As a caregiver for someone with any type of medical condition, life can be very hard. Care-giving can be a 24-hour job, with no respite whatsoever. On top of that, you have to organize, clean, feed your family, and carry out all the usual tasks associated with running a home and bringing up a family, and those tasks can quite possibly happen while you’re also holding down a job.

Who Cares for the Carer?

You should always think about caring for yourself. Studies have shown that approximately 87% of carers say caring for someone has a negative impact on their own health. If you’re in no fit state to look after yourself, how will you look after someone else? While it’s difficult, try and set aside some time for yourself, just so that you can at least recharge your batteries.

Family & Friends

Utilize that family and friend network. Don’t be afraid to ask people for help and don’t think that asking is a sign of weakness. It is instead a sign of understanding your own position and realizing that you just may not be able to do everything. You’re not Superman or Wonder Woman.

TryMunity

A traumatic brain injury can affect many different aspects of life. Depending on the severity or the type of injury, a TBI can even affect the personality of the person who has suffered it. It is hard to watch a loved one go through such tough times, but it is equally as hard to cope yourself.

When joining our community, you will be welcomed by others who know exactly what you’re going through. We know how difficult and overwhelming something like a traumatic brain injury can be to deal with, whether as a carer or someone suffering from a TBI. Always friendly, always able to give real world advice – join our community today.

Suffering a concussion – rightly or wrongly, most people don’t worry too much if they hear that phrase, to them, it means that the person has had ‘a bit of a knock to the head’. And surely, that really isn’t that serious?

What is a Concussion

Simply put, a concussion is an injury where the brain suffers trauma from contact with the skull, that impact disrupting normal brain function. It can occur from quite a simple knock to head – a cupboard door for instance, or with something more serious – car accident. Different levels of trauma dictate different worries, but on the whole, rest is a good starting point for recovery.

Repeated Trauma

The consequences of repeated trauma are much greater, although it still may only be a bump on the head, the damage caused increases exponentially with each trauma. Conditions can be mild but sustained; cognitive and psychiatric changes are frequent as well as neurodegeneration – all things that you really want to avoid.

Future Problems

While still not a definite guarantee, studies have shown that people who have suffered from a moderate traumatic brain injury in their earlier life are more susceptible to conditions such as Alzheimer’s in their later life, in some studies, that risk factor can be 2.4 times more likely, a severe traumatic brain injury has been shown to be 4.5 times more likely.

Professional Help

If you have suffered from a traumatic brain injury, it is worth taking medical advice and / or seeing a physician. Don’t take the risk – you only get one brain, and there are no transplants – no matter how wealthy you are.

TryMunity is an online community that helps to support and educate those who have been afflicted with some sort of traumatic brain injury. Join our community today and see just how we can support you.

Traumatic Brain Injury
Those three words are enough to strike fear in to most people, who naturally assume the worst. There is no doubt that a TBI can be very serious, meaning a complete change to life as you know it and possibly a lifetime of care and scheduling hospital appointments and visits, but there is also a side that is still classified as TBI that perhaps most of us have already experienced – a simple knock on the head from a cupboard door for example.

Traumatic?

Perhaps it is the word ‘traumatic’ that takes us along the road to thinking life will never be the same again? After all, its very meaning is ‘deeply disturbing or distressing’, but when it comes to any type of injury to the brain, it has to be taken very seriously.

Complexity

It is generally accepted that while the medical understanding of the brain has progressed in leaps and bounds over the last decade or so, it must be said that the understanding that we have is far outweighed by the information that we don’t know, we may never truly know all about the brain – its functionality, capacity and ability.

Severity

As with many things, understanding the level of severity is key to understanding the prognosis, and that is what makes it difficult – while many injuries are generic and have similar symptoms or causes, they are still different; different body, different emotions and different strengths. See the problem? That is what makes it a traumatic injury – many parts of the body are happily sliced away or off for examination, but the brain really does need to stay in one piece, where it is.

If you’re living with a TBI, either as a patient or carer, then you should come along to our virtual community – you’ll find support, advice, friends and information. Join us today.

While we like to give useful information in our blog posts, we also want to extend our ‘family’ of people looking for support, need support and just a space to just vent their thoughts and feelings. Going through any type condition can be very hard, but living with a Traumatic Brain Injury can be especially difficult, quite often, people just don’t realize just what it takes to be strong enough to live with any type of condition daily. Here at TryMunity, our members completely understand what you are going through, many of our members having already been through those difficult times.

Knowledge

Something that we learnt a long time ago is that ‘you don’t know, what you don’t know’. While on the face of it, that could almost be construed as somewhat of a silly statement, but when thought about, it is a very powerful piece of knowledge. Any type of long term condition is usually met by panic, then an urge to find out all about the condition, all while trying to live with the condition. Time is short and the learning curve is steep.
It is said that many people learn as much about conditions through casual conversations as they do through ‘research’ on the internet (or any other knowledge base).

Community

Imagine being surrounded by experts, sufferers and carers, all able to share their particular story and experience with you; you’ll get a much better understanding of the condition and how to cope with it. That is exactly what you’ll find as a member of TryMunity – a communal space, friendly, welcoming and supportive.

If you are caring for someone with a Traumatic Brain Injury, or have been diagnosed with such, join our community for free. Information, knowledge and support is what we do best.

Traumatic Brain Injury. Even just reading or hearing those three words is enough to send shivers down your spine, expecting the very worst case scenario possible. However, not is all as it seems; Traumatic Brain Injury has a wide variation as to effects and outcomes, causes and symptoms. If someone you know has been diagnosed with a TBI, it doesn’t necessarily mean a lifetime of care.

First Steps

While TBI is very serious, there are differing stages but your physician should explain the exact nature of the injury and expected prognosis. Of course, it is nearly impossible to give a definitive answer to any questions relating to the TBI, every person is different and as such, they will respond differently to injury or treatment. But there are some key indicators that they look for.

Mild or Severe

As you may imagine from those two (very) key words, the consequences of such injuries depend largely on what type of injury has been sustained; mild – loss of consciousness and disorientation for less than 30 minutes, severe – loss of consciousness for over 30 minutes or loss of memory for over 24 hours.

Causes

A traumatic brain injury can be caused from something as simple as a minor knock to the head, something like banging your head on a cupboard door for example or something as serious as an automobile accident. Statistics show that young men are more likely to be treated for TBI than other group of people.

Whatever the cause, however severe, getting support should be a priority. Here at TryMunity, we have a whole host of people who can help you get through this trauma, either as a sufferer of a TBI or as someone who cares for a sufferer. Supporters range from medical experts to people that have (or are) going through the same.

Join us now to see just how we can help to support you.