Traumatic Brain Injury

In 1998, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a Consensus Statement that broadly defines traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a brain injury from an externally inflicted trauma (i.e., car accident, physical abuse) that may result in significant impairment of an individual's physical, cognitive, and psychosocial functioning. The NIH Consensus Statement noted that while TBI could result in physical impairment, generally the more significant and/or problematic sequelae involved the person's cognition, emotional functioning, and behavior.

Reid and colleagues (2001) noted that approximately 75 to 200 of every 100,000 children will sustain a TBI in the United States each year, with a male-to-female ratio of nearly 2:1. The incidence of TBI also increases significantly in people who are 15 to 24 years of age, particularly for males. ...