Brain Injury Newsroom

Today We Understand A Great Deal More About The Healthy Brain And Its Response To Trauma

A 3-foot long, pointed rod penetrated the skull of Phineas Gage, a railway construction foreman. The rod entered at the top of his head, passed through his brain, and exited his skull by his temple. Gage survived the accident but suffered lasting personality and behavioral problems.

Today, we understand a great deal more about the healthy brain and its response to trauma, although science still has much to learn about how to reverse damage resulting from head injuries.

TBI costs the country more than $56 billion a year, and more than 5 million Americans alive today have had a TBI resulting in a permanent need for help in performing daily activities. Survivors of TBI are often left with significant cognitive, behavioral, and communicative disabilities, and some patients develop long-term medical complications, such as epilepsy.

Other statistics dramatically tell the story of head injury in the United States. Each year:

approximately 1.4 million people experience a TBI,

approximately 50,000 people die from head injury,

approximately 1 million head-injured people are treated in hospital emergency rooms, and

approximately 230,000 people are hospitalized for TBI and survive.