Your brain is the most important organ in your body. It controls all the aspects of your daily functioning, from walking down stairs to remembering important details at work. It’s essential for your health that you take the proper precautions to protect your brain from injuries.
A traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when there’s sudden force from an outside cause, such as a car accident, fall or sports injury. While they can range in severity, a brain injury can lead to complications that affect your physical, mental and behavioral well-being for years after the traumatic event. You can’t always prevent trauma from occurring due to external forces, like getting into an accident. Even so, there are tips that you can incorporate into your lifestyle to reduce the risk as well as the severity of the damage if it does occur.
5 ways to reduce the risk of TBI in your day-to-day lifestyle
There are things that you can’t control when it comes to traumatic events, such as a car running a red light. The good news is that we’ve compiled a list of brain injury prevention tips. They can help your whole family move more safely through their everyday life.
Here are five brain injury prevention tips for everyday life:
- Improve home lighting — Trips and falls are the most common causes of brain injuries, especially among younger and older people. Even in your home, tripping can lead to hitting your head on a hard floor, against the wall or on a piece of furniture. Your home lighting can play an important role in preventing brain injuries. By having proper lighting throughout your home, you can ensure the best visibility for potential hazards, including furniture, uneven surfaces or clutter.
- Practice strength and balance exercises — Since falls can lead to brain injuries, you can add exercises into your everyday routine and workout regimen to decrease the likelihood of falling. If you stretch your muscles in the morning when you get out of bed, you can incorporate exercises that will improve your balance, such as weight shifts and single-leg balances. There are also muscle strengthening exercises that can reduce the risk of falling, such as single-leg squats.
- Always use handrails — Falling down just a couple of steps can lead to your head hitting the hard ground. Even when you’re in a rush, be sure to use handrails for stability as you go up and down stairs. If you have stairs at home, you can install handrails that should be regularly assessed for damage. Handrails can also help provide additional safety against brain injuries in the bathroom. Consider adding one for the bathtub to reduce the risk of slipping on the wet surface.
- Wear a helmet during recreational activities — Everyone in the family should always wear a helmet during physical activities and sports. Whether your child is learning to skateboard, snowboard down a mountain or play a sport, wearing a helmet can protect their head. Helmets absorb the impact in the event of a crash or blow to the head. When it comes to bike riding, a common pastime for all ages, a helmet can reduce the risk of a head injury by up to 88%. No matter how it may look, never discount the importance of a helmet.
- Use properly fitted car and booster seats — Many state laws require children and adolescents to be in a car or booster seat up until they’re 4 feet, 9 inches tall, usually around 12 years old. Be sure that you update the seat based on your child’s age and size to make sure they are effectively protected in the case of a car accident. Similar to how all adults should be wearing proper seat belts in the car to reduce the risk of injury, children should likewise be protected.
The above tips are best practices for TBI prevention. If you believe that you or a loved one has sustained a brain injury, you should immediately seek medical treatment. Common symptoms of TBI include nausea, dizziness, and persistent or worsening headaches.
Ability KC provides outpatient medical rehabilitation for brain injuries
While these tips can help reduce the risk of a brain injury in your family’s everyday life, the unfortunate truth is that accidents still happen. TBIs often require inpatient treatment in a hospital to manage the damage as much as possible and minimize the immediate symptoms. Afterward, an outpatient medical rehabilitation facility like Ability KC can help improve the physical, psychological, emotional and behavioral well-being of a patient with brain injury.
Our individualized treatment plans for brain injuries often involve treatments such as medical concern monitoring, speech therapy, occupational therapy and psychology services.
Ability KC is a designated Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Facility (CORF). We also have a Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) accreditation. Contact our team today for more information or to schedule an initial appointment.