Brain Injury More Common Than Breast Cancer: Study
Posted June 10, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
For the most part, Ontarians can be proud of our health care.
We go to great lengths to improve it — we fundraise for cancer research and other illnesses — but new research suggests that there’s one illness we tend to forget.
Acquired Brain Injury is quite common – up to half a million Ontarians suffer from it.
Despite the high incidence, a recent study contends ABI is invisible in society, and tends to be left behind in the health care system.
Researchers say doctors patch up patients properly directly after an accident, but any long-term damage is left unattended.
That’s the reason for a new coalition created Tuesday. The Ontario Alliance for Action on Brain Injury (OAABI) will work to close cracks that ABI sufferers seem to slip through. Already the group is making their first call for reform, arguing that the government should give brain injury survivors access to long-term services.
Research shows that current patients are often put in psychiatric or long-term care homes, where they can’t get better, and often reverse any gains they’d made in rehabilitation.
And that’s the ones that receive care. It seems some wind up with even less attention – about 53% of homeless people in Toronto are said to have a history of brain injury.
School-aged children with brain injuries (estimates say there are about 27,000 of them) who go undiagnosed are misunderstood and aren’t treated with proper methods.
The coalition also wants to focus on those who take care of ABI sufferers, who undergo depression and burn-out from lack of support.
The first initiative of the OAABI is to spread awareness about brain injuries; an ad has already been created for the purpose.
For more information on brain injuries and the OAABI’s mandate, see the group’s website.
