It’s estimated that greater than one particular million adults inside the UK are at the moment living together with the long-term consequences of brain injuries (Headway, 2014b). Prices of ABI have enhanced significantly in recent years, with estimated increases more than ten years ranging from 33 per 
cent (Headway, 2014b) to 95 per cent (HSCIC, 2012). This enhance is due to a range of things which includes improved emergency response following injury (Powell, 2004); additional cyclists interacting with heavier visitors flow; elevated participation in risky sports; and bigger numbers of very old people today inside the population. According to Nice (2014), by far the most popular causes of ABI within the UK are falls (22 ?43 per cent), assaults (30 ?50 per cent) and road targeted traffic SIS3 cost accidents (circa 25 per cent), though the latter category accounts to get a disproportionate quantity of more serious brain injuries; other causes of ABI include sports injuries and domestic violence. Brain injury is far more popular amongst men than girls and shows peaks at ages fifteen to thirty and more than eighty (Good, 2014). International data show similar patterns. As an example, in the USA, the Centre for Disease Manage estimates that ABI affects 1.7 million Americans each and every year; young children aged from birth to 4, older teenagers and adults aged over sixty-five have the highest prices of ABI, with men additional susceptible than ladies across all age ranges (CDC, undated, Traumatic Brain Injury within the United states: Fact Sheet, readily available on line at www.cdc.gov/ traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html, accessed December 2014). There’s also increasing awareness and concern in the USA about ABI amongst military personnel (see, e.g. Okie, 2005), with ABI rates reported to exceed onefifth of combatants (Okie, 2005; Terrio et al., 2009). Whilst this article will concentrate on existing UK policy and practice, the challenges which it highlights are relevant to a lot of national contexts.Acquired Brain Injury, Social Work and PersonalisationIf the causes of ABI are wide-ranging and unevenly distributed across age and gender, the impacts of ABI are similarly diverse. A number of people make a good recovery from their brain injury, whilst others are left with significant ongoing issues. Furthermore, as Headway (2014b) cautions, the `initial diagnosis of severity of injury is just not a dependable indicator of long-term problems’. The potential impacts of ABI are well described both in (non-social function) academic literature (e.g. Fleminger and Ponsford, 2005) and in personal accounts (e.g. Crimmins, 2001; Perry, 1986). Nonetheless, offered the limited attention to ABI in social operate literature, it can be worth 10508619.2011.638589 listing some of the widespread after-effects: physical troubles, cognitive difficulties, impairment of executive functioning, alterations to a person’s behaviour and changes to emotional regulation and `personality’. For a lot of people today with ABI, there will likely be no physical indicators of impairment, but some might experience a range of physical issues such as `loss of co-ordination, muscle rigidity, paralysis, epilepsy, difficulty in speaking, loss of sight, smell or taste, fatigue, and sexual problems’ (Headway, 2014b), with fatigue and headaches getting particularly prevalent immediately after cognitive activity. ABI may well also bring about cognitive difficulties like challenges with journal.pone.0169185 memory and lowered speed of information and facts processing by the brain. These physical and cognitive aspects of ABI, whilst difficult for the person concerned, are fairly effortless for social workers and other folks to conceptuali.
