It is estimated that more than 1 million adults within the UK are at the

It is estimated that more than 1 million adults within the UK are at the moment living with the long-term consequences of brain injuries (Headway, 2014b). Rates of ABI have elevated significantly in current years, with estimated increases over ten years ranging from 33 per cent (Headway, 2014b) to 95 per cent (HSCIC, 2012). This improve is as a consequence of several different aspects such as improved emergency response following injury (Powell, 2004); extra cyclists interacting with heavier website traffic flow; enhanced participation in unsafe sports; and bigger numbers of quite old persons inside the population. According to Good (2014), one of the most popular causes of ABI inside the UK are falls (22 ?43 per cent), assaults (30 ?50 per cent) and road website traffic accidents (circa 25 per cent), even though the latter category accounts for a disproportionate variety of much more severe brain injuries; other causes of ABI involve sports injuries and domestic violence. Brain injury is additional common amongst guys than females and shows peaks at ages fifteen to thirty and over eighty (Nice, 2014). International information show related patterns. By way of example, within the USA, the Centre for Disease Control estimates that ABI impacts 1.7 million Americans each year; kids aged from birth to four, older teenagers and adults aged more than sixty-five possess the highest rates of ABI, with guys extra susceptible than females across all age ranges (CDC, undated, Traumatic Brain Injury in the United states: Reality Sheet, available on the internet at www.cdc.gov/ traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html, accessed December 2014). There’s also growing awareness and concern within the USA about ABI amongst military personnel (see, e.g. Okie, 2005), with ABI prices reported to exceed onefifth of combatants (Okie, 2005; Terrio et al., 2009). While this article will focus on present UK policy and practice, the issues which it highlights are relevant to quite a few national contexts.Acquired Brain Injury, Social Work and PersonalisationIf the causes of ABI are wide-ranging and unevenly distributed across age and gender, the impacts of ABI are similarly diverse. Many people make a good recovery from their brain injury, whilst other individuals are left with important ongoing issues. Furthermore, as Headway (2014b) cautions, the `initial diagnosis of severity of injury is not a reliable indicator of long-term problems’. The potential impacts of ABI are well described each in (non-social operate) academic literature (e.g. Fleminger and Ponsford, 2005) and in private accounts (e.g. Crimmins, 2001; Perry, 1986). Even so, given the restricted attention to ABI in social work literature, it’s worth 10508619.2011.638589 listing some of the frequent after-effects: physical difficulties, cognitive issues, impairment of executive functioning, modifications to a person’s behaviour and modifications to emotional regulation and `personality’. For many folks with ABI, there will probably be no physical indicators of impairment, but some may encounter a selection of physical difficulties including `loss of co-ordination, muscle rigidity, paralysis, epilepsy, difficulty in speaking, loss of sight, smell or taste, fatigue, and sexual problems’ (Headway, 2014b), with fatigue and headaches getting specifically typical soon after cognitive activity. ABI may perhaps also cause cognitive troubles such as complications with journal.pone.0169185 memory and lowered speed of details processing by the brain. These physical and cognitive aspects of ABI, whilst challenging for the individual concerned, are fairly uncomplicated for social GW610742 biological activity workers and others to conceptuali.