What is

IBI?

Invisible Brain Injury

Acquired Brain

INJURY

ABI can be caused by a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), stroke, tumors, long COVID and other brain pathologies. It is much more than a problem of mobility There are other invisible consequences.

There are many invisible impairments resulting from Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) which can greatly affect the quality of life of individuals and their loved ones. These impairments are what we call IBI or Invisible Brain Injury. It is very important to know them and to be able to detect them properly.

Not all disabilities

are visible

Invisible

impairments

Some invisible symptoms that can affect us are fatigue, apathy, lack of flexibility, impulsiveness, changes in emotional sensitivity or expressiveness, divided attention, communication problems, etc.

In addition, we must not forget executive functions impairments, such as difficulties in organization and planning.

A good assessment and including invisible impairments rehabilitation will greatly help to rebuild ABI survivors identity.

If it is not done, people feel bad and also treat themselves worse, since they do not understand what is happening to them, nor do they receive treatment for it.

Some of the invisible impairments can be:

cognitive:

Attention, memory, executive functions difficulties, cognitive fatigue, slow information processing, organization and planning difficulties, lack of impairment awareness, visual agnosia…

behavioural

Lack of motor, impulsiveness, apathy, irritability. Mood or personality changes, aggressiveness.

emotional

Emotional inexpressiveness or emotional hypersensitivity. Lack of empathy, affective flattening. Sadness, extreme joy, sudden and unjustified mood swings.

Communicative

Aphasia: Losing the ability to speak, understand, read, or write.

physical

Auditory and optical hypersensitivity, sleep disturbance, vision problems.

PSYCHOLOGICAL

Difficulties in accepting and adapting to changes, mood disorders.

DISCOVER ibi

Places of interest

There are many interesting places which can be of great help for people that suffer an acquired brain injury. Below we will list some of the most useful ones that we know of. We will keep expanding the list.