Brain Injury Case Study Analysis

This assignment presents a detailed case study of an individual suffering from a frontal lobe brain injury. It requires a comprehensive analysis of the impact of the injury on various aspects of the patient's life, including body functions, activities, and participation. Students are expected to apply the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) model to understand and describe the individual's impairments and challenges. The analysis should cover personal factors, environmental factors, and their influence on the patient's overall well-being.

Occupational Therapy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Client History and Occupational Impairments................................................................................1
Proposed Interventions....................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................11
International classification of functioning, disability and health (ICF).....................................11

INTRODUCTION
Occupational therapy is used as an assessment and intervention with the aim of developing, recovering and maintain meaningful
activities for an individual or a group (Taylor, 2017). The paper discuses regarding Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and assess the
problems faced by Simon. The report discusses regarding the condition of a patient named Simon who suffered a traumatic brain
injury after falling from a wall. A comprehensive discussion has been made regarding his physical and mental condition through
analysis of the video. Methods of adoption of occupational therapy have also been developed and discussed in the report. The report
also discusses regarding behavioural aspects of Simon due to TBI he faced. Occupational therapy given to him will also be discussed
in the report.
Client History and Occupational Impairments
The story that has been shared in the video named “The new brain” is related to a young boy named Simon who is currently 20
years old. Six years from now on, he suffered a massive brain injury when he fell from a wall while playing with his friends on a
drunken night. The injury left him in Coma for five weeks (Taylor, 2017). The serious traumatic brain injury made him a forgetful
person. The narrator stated that he now faces terrible memory where he is not able to recognize people, finds difficulty in
remembering things. For instance, once he went to the supermarket, but then forget the way to return to home. He has also lost his
concentration power to the maximum which does not allow him to concentrate one or the other thing. He has also lost his quality of
organizing things and keeping them at the right place. Specialists found that his fall came about on the frontal projection slamming
against within the skull. The mind proceeded onward the cranial overlap. His mind was wounded and it swelled. While the skull is
hard and firm, the mind is delicate and has the consistency of gelatine. The mind proceeded onward the cranial overlap. His mind was
wounded and it swelled. While the skull is hard and unyielding, the cerebrum is delicate and has the consistency of gelatine.
TBI is generally thought as an event which is actually a chronic process of recovery. It can lead the individual to behavioural,
cognitive and physical injury. Since, it affects the cognitive ability of the patient, it leads the individual to unable to retain, affect
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concentration power, memory issues with clouded thinking. Certain employment challenges are also faced by the patient after its
episode (Fisher, 2014).
In his earlier days, before the accident, he used to be a student at New Castle University where he used to be known with certain
attributes, such as, young, funny, smiley and easy going (Pallant, 2013). However, it is now difficult for him to maintain the same
easy-going attitude. A specialist health care professional stated that he has injured his front head lobe inside the skull which has led to
have injury in the form of swelling and bruises. It is due to this he is not able to lead a normal life. The traumatic brain injury
obsessive about certain things, especially which are related to his accident and coma. He sometimes also become violent due to never
ending mood swings that he faces. He is also not in love with his mother’s lurcher, spider, anymore, which he used to like before his
accident.
The documentary also mentioned regarding effect that was faced by the family as well where, his younger brother has to help him
in getting his teeth brushed and getting into the bed. Simon has to live into rehab for several months so as to bring his situation under
control. There are certain patches of behaviour of Simon has left with respect to being a humorous child or having some flashes of his
past memory as well has been noticed by the doctor. It is an act of progress that has been reflected in his health since the day he met
with the accident (Pendleton and Schultz-Krohn, 2017).
A high frequency of damage in his frontal lobe with respect to TBI makes it difficult for people to indulge in planning, analysing
and execution aspect of any plan. Hence, simple tasks can act as quite a huge problem for him.
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Proposed Interventions
The best area of occupation in case of Simon so as to bring him at a required normal state can be by indulging him in
Instrumental activities of daily life. This type of occupation generally comprises of shopping and preparation of food. The
documentary reflected regarding various areas where he tends to get interested in the kitchen and getting certain things from the
supermarket. It is difficult for him to get his work done on his own. Having deficiency of remembering things make it quite difficult
for instructors in the form of mother and brother to leave him alone and get him things done on his own. The documentary also
revealed regarding his will to prepare his food on his own (Whalley Hammell, 2013).
Hence, it can be stated that the best thing that can be done for him as an area of occupation is to indulge him in Instrumental
activities of daily life. It is because he holds adequate amount of interest in this area. Moreover, it can help in making him feel happy
and satisfied for longer period of time where his mood swings and violent activities can also be controlled to a great extent. Other
important aspect of getting him indulged in these types of activities is that it helps in boosting up the confidence that motivates the
individual to further invest more timer in such activities. Simon have been experiencing the same due to brain injury (Case-Smith,
2013). There are other people in the class as well who showed even worse sign of anger and frustration. Indulging them in such frolic
activities leads to control their anger and mood swings aspect of life as well. It distracts him from the episode of brain injury and helps
in concentrating on other course of life as well.
As the individual has been indulged in Instrumental activities of daily life, Simon will be involved in preparing food of various
types and will also be involved in getting food and other products from outside (Schell and et.al., 2013). The creative side of Simon
was reflective when he was taught to prepare food. His interest level seems high and involving him in regular classes can help in
bringing his anger and mood swings issues at a reduced level. It will help in giving him a normal and happy life. It will also help in
improving his remembering power where an improved side of remembrance power as well. Since, he sometimes behaves like two-
year toddler who has to scolded sometimes son as to control his behaviour of id and anger. In that case, his involvement in one or the
other activities can get his condition improved than before. However, overloading his mind with lot of new information can affect him
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to a great extent where his anger side can be displayed. Hence, in that case, it is important for the instructor to opt for easy method that
does not affect his brain in negative manner rather than in positive one. The subjective changes which result from TBI regularly cause
continuous inability and incapacitate for the individual who is harmed and may make a critical weight for family and relatives. It has
been settled that psychological deficiencies appear at any rate some level of unconstrained recuperation in the months and following
such damage
Neurological and cognitive dysfunction is directly related to loss of certain intellectual functions which are very important for
the human body and mental state to function normally. These are, remembering, thinking and understanding the severity of one or the
other behaviour. The patient suffering from any cognitive dysfunctionality may face issue trouble in recalling verbal communication,
perform basic arithmetic and indulge in high level of concentration activities as well. Traumatic brain injury experienced by an
individual, activities related to cognition can become even more worse. Common activities that are related of cognition are, memory,
communication, planning, organizing, assembling, decision making activities, reasoning problem solving, being patient, become
impulsive and processing any information that has been transferred to the brain and mind. Learning and language are the other issues
that are quite common in the patient who are facing cognitive and neurological disorder due to traumatic brain injury. Restless and
impulsive nature is something which can easily distract the individual which shows that individual do not hold any kind of patience it
his activity.
The template (attached in Appendix) filled is based upon International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)
which helps in outlining key impairments which Simon has been facing since he met with the accident. There are certain activities and
participation to which he is restricted due to health issues (Hammell and Iwama, 2012). The template helps in getting overall general
idea regarding the activities and restriction of Simon. Based on the analysis of the documentary and his disease prepared above,
following key strengths of Simon can be stated:
 Simon have been quite a humous individual and the strength is that he has not lost the same after accident. It helps and guides him
to get himself going in his life.
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 As the documentary reflects, he has been quite a participative individual who tends to participate in various activities such as cake
bake classes and also loves to have fun with his younger brother as well. It helps in ensuring that he is not loud and cranky as other
individual may become after going through this type of injury (Fisher, 2014).
 Even after going through traumatic injury he tries to keep himself motivated by indulging in house chores activities, such as
getting vegetables and other household things from a supermarket. Although, it is difficult for him to step out of the house alone.
But, it helps in getting himself connected with the other individual’s and strangers as well (Lal, Jarus and Suto, 2012).
The above strengths being identified can help the person indulged in taking care of him to set up a proper plan that can ultimately
help Simon in leading a better life. His mother and brother are quite supportive and help him in his daily chore activities. Simon also
goes with his brother George for some camping as well so as to involve in other physical activities as well rather than following
similar routine. Hence, it can be stated he has been getting immense support from his family and friends so as to recover from the
phase in a well-defined manner. The phase has brought him closer to the family. From the condition of Simon, it can be stated that he
is recovering from his phase. He tries to get indulged in certain kitchen activities as well. He was also being able to make friends in
rehabilitation centre due to his furious nature. Behavioral inabilities influence relational connections when survivors display modified
identity auras, experience difficulty controlling indignation, or utilize unseemly dialect after damage. This was shown regularly by
Simon when he invested ends of the week at home and had forceful upheavals to his family including yelling, swearing and
notwithstanding punching his sibling. Moreover, he tries to indulge himself in one or the other activity so as to keep himself busy and
with the aim to fasten the pace of recovery. He tends to go in the playground so as to play with his friends and younger brother. It
indicates his interest towards physical and sports related activities as well. Hence identification of these strengths can help in handling
and tackling him in a well-defined and effective manner (Missiuna and et.al., 2012). The high recurrence of harm to the frontal
projections related with TBI implies that numerous individuals experience issues in dissecting, arranging and executing the answers
for issues or complex assignments.
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Occupational therapy is used as an assessment and intervention with the aim of developing, recovering and maintain meaningful
activities for an individual or a group. This is an allied health profession that is generally conducted by occupational therapists. These
therapists generally work with people suffering from mental health problems, people with disabilities, injuries or any kind of
impairment. Researchers have stated that these therapists help various people to participate in things they require and do as an
important activity of their life. There are various therapists that are present who provide invention to participate in school and other
social events so that they can lead a happy and healthy life (Enderby, John and Petheram, 2013). The situation of an individual who
requires an occupational therapist can be injury rehabilitation, people experiencing physical and cognitive changes due to other mental
health issues, etc.
Occupational therapists are the university graduated professional who tend to get licence for practice it as a full-time profession.
They are closely related with the professionals such as, audiology, clinical psychology, speech and physical therapy and medicine.
There is quite a strong relationship between, Instrumental activities of daily life and occupational therapy, since these types of
therapist helps in making the assessment that whether the individual must be involved in these activities or not. In this case,
occupational therapists can teach and rebuild the skills of developing and enhancing independence by indulging in these activities. It
also helps in developing walking speed of the patient, strengthening balance and develop coordination among various parts of the
body. Various tools of evaluation are used to ascertain the enhancement in daily activities of their patient. In order to analyse the
improvement, scaling tool is used and Performance Assessment of Self Care Skills (PASS) are used for better and effective reports
outcome. It helps in evaluating each and every aspect which may directly be related to patient and his instrumental activities of daily
life (Kim and et.al., 2012). By provoking Simon with questions and empowering him to discover the response for himself, he is urging
him to distinguish and apply the best answer for the displayed issue, which enhances his basic leadership and critical thinking abilities,
and it is additionally vital so the blunders are not incorporated with the memory.
In order to cope up with the ongoing situation due to ineffective presence of cognition, it is important for the individual to
reduce distractions in the room in which the individual is working. It helps in giving quite area to think and develop concentration
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power. Simon can be taught preparation of food in a quiet environment to have maximum attention from his side and refrain him from
any distracting activities. He can be allowed to focus upon one task rather than try to indulge in multi-tasking activities. Beginning
with practicing skills through simple and adaptive activities can also help Simon in fruitful manner. Practical activities for the same
can involve, reading small paragraph and adding numbers in a quiet room. Gradually making the task harder when the individual gets
adaptive to the same can help in solving out the issue where, in further stages, one can get involved in certain harder activities in noisy
environment as well. Giving adequate breaks to Simon between the activities can prevent his brain from overloading information can
also act as an effective measure to cope up with his cognitive dysfunctionality.
The documentary stated that Simon sometimes faces issue regarding processing and understading information as well. In such
case, clear instructions from the instructor on a repetitive mode can help in solving out the issue to a great extent. Placing full attention
on what the individual is trying to make him understand without any distraction and allowing more time to think before moving to the
next instruction can help in relatively solving out the issue to a great extent that can ultimately be reflected in the behaviour of Simon
in a positive manner.
In order to indulge Simon in supermarket related activities, planning and organizing criteria is to be furnished which is quite
lacking in him. However, in order to cope up with the issue, list of things can be prepared which can be accompanied with Simon and
the list must be prepared in ascending order to picking up of articles and products from the departmental store. It will help him in
better organizing and planning of things. Other activities that can be adopted by the instructor in case of Simon can be, breaking out of
things in smaller steps, helping in figuring out of steps that can help in effective completion of the activity and then working towards
the end goal can help in developing better results (Hoffman and et.al., 2014).
There is a great deal of relationship between impairments hold by Simon, performance in the activities and his participation in
the selected area of occupation. Simon has suffered from traumatic brain injury which has reduced his participation and interest in
various activities. However, indulging him in Instrumental activities of daily life in the form of preparation of food or getting products
from outside can help in development of his confidence. Since, the activities are innovative enough and require attention as well, the
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interest of Simon can easily be generated. Hence, selected area of occupation is effective enough and can bring adequate amount of
changes in his life if adopted properly and with patience by the instructor.
Evaluation factors for Simon can be in the form of body functions, which includes, visual, mental, sensory-perceptual,
neuromusculoskeletal, pain factors and cognitive. It is also important to evaluate body structures as well, which can be analysed in the
form of digestive, nervous, genitourinary function, cardiovascular, etc. Occupational therapists can also indulge in analysing habits,
routines, rituals and behaviour in order to judge the present condition of Simon and assess if any improvement is there in the patient or
not. Some of the therapeutic activities in such cases include, training in self-care, health management, self-management, home
management and work performance as well. Modifications in the environment as per the requirements of Simon can help in building
better results where, Simon can be made comfortable with the changes and adoption and can also help in promoting rigorous learning
through the same.
Hence, it can be stated that, occupational therapy is an important aspect that can be adopted in case of Simon so as to have
effective life for him. Moreover, it can also help him to at least perform daily course of activities so that his dependence on his mother
and brother can be reduced to the minimum.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be articulated that, Simon met with an accident at the age of 20 which left him with Traumatic brain
Injury after spending five weeks in Coma. The narrator stated that he now faces terrible memory where he is not able to recognize
people, finds difficulty in remembering things (Cutting Edge: My New Brain, 2014). He has also lost his quality of organizing things
and keeping them at the right place. The documentary also mentioned regarding effect that was faced by the family as well where, his
younger brother has to help him in getting his teeth brushed and getting into the bed. The best area of occupation in case of Simon so
as to bring him at a required normal state can be by indulging him in Instrumental activities of daily life. It generally comprises of
shopping and preparation of food. Occupational therapy has also been applied which states that teaching and rebuilding the skills of
developing and enhancing independence by indulging in various activities can help Simon in adoption of effective lifestyle.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Case-Smith, J., 2013. I foundational knowledge for occupational therapy for children. Occupational Therapy for Children-E-Book,
p.1.
Enderby, P., John, A. and Petheram, B., 2013. Therapy outcome measures for rehabilitation professionals: speech and language
therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy. John Wiley & Sons.
Fisher, A. G., 2014. Occupation-centred, occupation-based, occupation-focused: Same, same or different? Previously published in
Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy 2013; 20: 162–173. Scandinavian journal of occupational therapy. 21(sup1).
pp.96-107.
Hammell, K. R. W. and Iwama, M. K., 2012. Well-being and occupational rights: An imperative for critical occupational
therapy. Scandinavian journal of occupational therapy. 19(5). pp.385-394.
Hoffman, H. G. and et.al., 2014. Feasibility of articulated arm mounted Oculus Rift Virtual Reality goggles for adjunctive pain control
during occupational therapy in pediatric burn patients. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 17(6). pp.397-401.
Kim, S. Y. and et.al., 2012. A systematic review of the effects of occupational therapy for persons with dementia: a meta-analysis of
randomized controlled trials. NeuroRehabilitation. 31(2). pp.107-115.
Lal, S., Jarus, T. and Suto, M. J., 2012. A scoping review of the photovoice method: Implications for occupational therapy
research. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy. 79(3). pp.181-190.
Missiuna, C. A. and et.al., 2012. Partnering for change: An innovative school-based occupational therapy service delivery model for
children with developmental coordination disorder. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy. 79(1). pp.41-50.
Pallant, J., 2013. SPSS survival manual. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Pendleton, H.M. and Schultz-Krohn, W., 2017. Pedretti's Occupational Therapy-E-Book: Practice Skills for Physical Dysfunction.
Elsevier Health Sciences.
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Schell, B. A. and et.al., 2013. Willard and Spackman's occupational therapy. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Taylor, R. R., 2017. Kielhofner's Research in Occupational Therapy: Methods of Inquiry for Enhancing Practice. FA Davis.
Whalley Hammell, K. R., 2013. Client-centred practice in occupational therapy: Critical reflections. Scandinavian journal of
occupational therapy. 20(3). pp.174-181.
Online
Cutting Edge: My New Brain. 2014. [Online]. Available through < https://vimeo.com/83596829>
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APPENDIX
International classification of functioning, disability and health (ICF)
`
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HEALTH CONDITION: Brain Injury damaging the frontal lobe of the
brain under the skull
PARTICIPATION:
 Social engagement is less due to
forgetful behaviour and difficulty in
remembering things
 Not fit for employment
 Decreased quality of life
ACTIVITIES:
 Requires assistance in each and every
activity of life inclusive of brushing of
teeth, showering, etc.
 Raise in anxiety and mood swings
 Clear mobility without help
 Increase in anger issues
BODY FUNCTIONS AND
STRUCTURES:
 Head injury having bruises and
swelling in the frontal area of brain.
 Fitness level is low
 Severity of neurological injury
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS:
 Barriers in transportation due to hopeless
memory
 Lack of cognitive thinking
 Lack of mental stability
 Lack of confidence
 Concentration issues.
PERSONAL FACTORS:
 Mental status is quite lost.
 Do not remember the things that has happened
before accident
 Requires constant assistance from somebody.
