Moderate and Severe Brain Injury Basics

Key points

  • A severe brain injury can affect all aspects of a person's life.
  • Rehabilitation can improve the overall quality of life for a person with a severe brain injury.

What to do if your child has a moderate/severe brain injury

Knowing what to do after your child is diagnosed with moderate or severe brain injury might feel overwhelming. Talking with a healthcare provider about available treatments, rehabilitation services, and community programs, like support groups, can help.12 See the Where to Get Help webpage for more information on brain injury programs where you live.

A child with a moderate or severe brain injury will likely need to be hospitalized and may have long-term problems affecting things such as:1

Thinking and learning

  • Difficulty understanding and thinking clearly
  • Trouble communicating and learning skills
  • Problems concentrating
  • Difficulty remembering information

Motor skills, hearing, and vision

  • Weakness in arms and legs
  • Problems with coordination and balance
  • Problems with hearing and vision
  • Changes in sensory perception, such as touch

Emotion/mood

  • Feeling more emotional than usual
  • Nervousness or anxiety
  • Feeling more angry or aggressive than usual
  • Sadness, depression

Behavior

  • Trouble controlling behavior
  • Personality changes
  • More impulsive than usual

A moderate or severe brain injury can affect all aspects of a child's life. This includes relationships with family and friends, as well as their ability to go to school and other daily activities. Learn more about recovery from a moderate or severe brain injury.

Ask about specialized medical care and services

Getting specialized medical care is important for improving the lives of children with a brain injury and lowering the chance for lifelong or chronic health problems.3 Some of the health problems that result from a moderate or severe brain injury may be prevented or lessened through specialized medical care, such as rehabilitation.145 Rehabilitation care may include getting help with:

  • Re-learning skills
  • Getting back to school
  • Doing daily tasks independently
  • Engaging with friends and family
  • Participating in community activities

Learn more about brain injury rehabilitation programs and services.

Your child's healthcare provider can also help find and connect your child to services in their community. It is important for your healthcare provider to also screen for and treat problems, such as anxiety and depression, that may appear or get worse in children with a brain injury.67

Stay connected to others during recovery

There are many organizations that can help you and your child as they recover. You do not have to do it alone. If you do not think your child is getting better, talk with their healthcare provider.

See Where to Get Help for organizations that can provide support for children living with a brain injury and their families.

Resources

Fact sheets on traumatic brain injury

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Content Source:
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Report to Congress on Traumatic Brain Injury in the United States: Epidemiology and Rehabilitation. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control; Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention. Accessed June 15, 2022, https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/29215
  2. Corrigan JD, Cuthbert JP, Harrison-Felix C, et al. US population estimates of health and social outcomes 5 years after rehabilitation for traumatic brain injury. J Head Trauma Rehabil. Nov-Dec 2014;29(6):E1-9. doi:10.1097/htr.0000000000000020
  3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Report to Congress: The Management of Traumatic Brain Injury in Children. 2018.
  4. Bowman K, Matney C, Berwick DM. Improving Traumatic Brain Injury Care and Research: A Report From the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. JAMA. 2022;327(5):419-420.
  5. Dams-O'Connor K, Juengst SB, Bogner J, et al. Traumatic brain injury as a chronic disease: insights from the United States Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems Research Program. The Lancet Neurology. 2023;
  6. Ledoux A-A, Webster RJ, Clarke AE, et al. Risk of Mental Health Problems in Children and Youths Following Concussion. JAMA Network Open. 2022;5(3):e221235-e221235.
  7. Delmonico RL, Theodore BR, Sandel ME, Armstrong MA, Camicia M. Prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders following mild traumatic brain injury. PM&R. 2022;14(7):753-763. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/pmrj.12657