Children with Traumatic Brain Injury Term Paper

Children with Traumatic Brain Injury - Term Paper Example TBI refers to brain injuries that are caused by external physical forces and not brain injuries that result during childbirth or those that are congenital and degenerative (Ponsford, Draper &Schonberger, 2008). In actual fact, TBI may occur in several ways for instance when the head hits an object, when the head comes into contact with force or when there is movement inside the skull. This results in the development of two types of TBI first being the closed head injury (CHI) which refers to brain damage that is not caused by exterior force and the damages are not visible. The other is open head injury (OHI) which is caused by the impact of external force resulting in the development of visible head injuries for instance swelling. Unfortunately, a child that sustains a brain injury may look fine at the moment but later in life, especially in the adolescent stage exhibit intense behavioral and cognitive problems. This implies that TBI causes children to have lifelong disabilities incl uding cognitive, perceptual, memory, abstract thinking, psychosocial behavior, speech, language, attention, judgment, information processing, sensory, physical functions and problem-solving impairments (Saatman, Duhaime & Workshop Scientific Team and Advisory Panel Members, 2008). These disabilities are manifested in an array of characteristics depending on the location and extent of brain injury. They may also be permanent or temporary in nature where they can either cause total or partial psychosocial adjustment or functional disabilities. For instance, students with cognitive impairments suffer from long or short-term memory deficits thus remembering things and facts become quite difficult. Such students also suffer from impaired concentration and limited attention span. Therefore, they cannot engage in any activity for a long period of time even concentrating in class becomes difficult. Moreover, these students suffer from impaired perception where sequencing, judgment, and plan ning pose a serious problem. In addition, such children gravely suffer from communication problems which inhibit both their writing and reading skills. This is as a result of damage that occurs in the frontal lobes of the brain (Aimaretti & Ghigo, 2007). TBI also manifests behavioral and emotional characteristics which include mood swings, lowered self-esteem, self-centeredness, fatigue, anxiety, depression, restlessness and nosedived motivation. They are also unable to control their emotions as at times they may excessively cry or laugh. As a result, they can neither self-monitor nor relate well with others. This arises because of damage that occurs in the limbic system in the brain. On the other hand, the physical impairment characteristics include sensory impairments as well as vision, speech and hearing problems. Conversely, the students may suffer from constant headaches, paralysis or paresis of either or both sides, lack of proper balance, gait impairments, spasticity of muscl es and seizure disorders. They also lack effective coordination especially the fine motor coordination. These physical characteristics arise due to an imbalance that affects the brain equilibrium. This is because of the development of the midline shift syndrome which further affects the weight, posture and drift posture of patients with TBI. As a result, the patients do not see a straight horizon or wall they see them as tilted (Parikh, Koch & Narayan, 2007).