Living With Injury
LIST OF POSSIBLE FUNCTIONAL DEFICITS 
RESULTING
FROM A TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY
- Debilitation, fatigue.
- Sleep dysfunction, i.e. insomnia, day and night confusion.
- Lack of stamina.
- Problems planning, organizing and initiating tasks.
- Difficulties with multitasking and sequencing, i.e. keeping track of
two things at once.
- Need for structure and direction to accomplish tasks.
- Poor concentration, attention and memory.
- Problems retrieving information from memory.
- Although intelligence remains intact, there is slowness in processing
information, particularly new information especially if fatigued or over
stimulated.
- Problems with pacing activities.
- Difficulty with judgment and decision making.
- Irritability
- Impulsivity
- Difficulty dealing with change.
- Inability to cue, leading to socially inappropriate behavior.
- Isolating self as feeling different, and therefore treated differently
- Hard to “keep up” in social situations.
- Poor coping strategies which impact on interpersonal and vocational efforts.
- Vertigo (dizziness), light headed feeling.
- Tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
- Light or sound sensitivity.
- Smell and taste alterations.
- Visual, speech and hearing disturbances.
- Stress related disorders-depression-frustration.
- Emotional liability, i.e. crying for no apparent reason.
- Emotional / behavioral outbursts.
- Compulsive talkativeness.
- Balance and co-ordination problems (motor co-ordination).
- Personality change.
- Chronic pain, including headache.
- Inability to return to work, or, if able, at reduced capacity and with
great effort.
- Family breakdown.
- Possible misdiagnosis as, for example, psychiatric illness or malingering.
Each head injury is different. A survivor may experience any combination of symptoms or none at all. Severities of symptoms vary with each individual and may change over time.