Effective Strategies to Implement After a Brain Injury

Explore acquired brain injury, including traumatic and non-traumatic types, and how an eight hour neuropsychological battery reveals premorbid functioning, cognitive deficits, and strategies for rehabilitation.

Explore the frontal lobe and its executive skills, including problem solving, memory, language, motivation, judgment, impulse control, social behavior, and how injury can alter emotions, initiation, and personality.

Identify individual factors before implementing brain injury strategies, including age at injury, personal reinforcers, reinforcement schedules, and strategy difficulty, then tailor cues to meet each person's needs.

Explore practical frontal lobe strategies to boost independence after brain injury, including the calm down box, planner, and memory aids like pill boxes with timers and pictures on cards.

Apply the calm down box as a personalized anger-regulation tool after a brain injury, and pair it with a planner to support ongoing self-management.

Harness the power of paper and pen planners to reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms while engaging executive functions through a simple, customizable week-at-a-glance system with tabs for doctor questions.

Explore how the parietal lobe supports sensory and spatial awareness, eye hand coordination, touch, and language via Wernicke's area, and its role in post-concussive syndrome after head injuries.

Explore parietal lobe strategies that use a planner, picture cards, and three-by-five cards to improve sequencing, memory, and independence after brain injury.

Explore the temporal lobe’s roles in emotions, memory, language, smell, taste, perception, and central auditory processing, and how trauma can alter hearing and auditory interpretation.

Explore the temporal lobe functions—memory, language comprehension, receptive language, sequencing, hearing, and organization—and apply strategies that address each area individually and collectively.

Explore temporal lobe strategies by using voicemail notes on your cell phone for memory and sequencing, supported by planners, sequencing cards, and hearing aids or FM systems.

Explore the occipital lobe at the back of the brain, governing vision. Highlight its role in reading and visual difficulties, and collaborate with therapists, physicians, and speech therapy as needed.

Explore how injury to the occipital lobe causes visual field loss, blind spots, depth perception issues, and color perception problems, and learn when to engage outside consultants for tailored strategies.

Adjust home lighting and use labeling to support vision difficulties after occipital lobe injury. Boost independence with repetition, decluttering, consistent placement of frequently used items, and relaxation when overload occurs.

Apply flexible strategies for brain injury recovery, recognizing that progress is inconsistent. Use a staircase mindset and adapt planners—paper, auditory, or digital—and celebrate milestones, recognizing that each person is unique.

Explore brain injury types, traumatic or non-traumatic, map injuries to the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes, and apply overlapping strategies such as three-by-five cards and sequencing.

Congratulations on completing this course. Learn practical strategies to implement after a brain injury and complete assignments that apply these approaches today.