Last year, the BBC released a scandalous film that highlighted the poor care to which brain injury victims are routinely subjected. Audiences were aghast to see health care workers in their own national healthcare system treating rehabilitation center patients with carelessness — at best — and often with actions bordering on abusive. Safety procedures were ignored, hygiene was neglected and, in at least one case, doctors’ orders were directly violated.
The film was made by the spouse of one
brain injury patient whose concerns over 
her partner’s well-being were repeatedly ignored. Rather than give up, she installed a secret camera in his room. Among other things, the footage showed a health care assistant cleaning the patient’s stomach tube with the tip of a pen, and giving him drinks of water even though he was supposed to receive nothing through the mouth.
The film brought much-needed attention to the plight of brain injury patients in Britain’s National Healthcare System. But it also shows the awful effects that ignorance and lack of care have on the well-being of a victim of brain trauma. Even those who are surrounded by a loving support system can suffer due to a family’s lack of information or assumptions about their condition.
In addition to helping brain injury victims get justice and legal resources to improve their lives, we at the Brain Injury Law Center want to help our community with resources for learning what to expect in this new chapter of their lives and how to offer the best possible support to a loved one suffering from brain injury or trauma.
Here are a few of the things we’ve learned. Continue reading
What you can do to protect your elderly loved ones from Traumatic Brain Injury caused by nursing home neglect.