Traumatic Brain Injury – Substance Abuse

Transcript

Sometimes I’m asked what are the kind of sequella or the things that follow having a traumatic brain injury. And I would say the number one issue that we as physicians see, was somebody with lingering effects of a TBI is that of substance abuse. It’s been written that about 40 to 70% of individuals with a traumatic brain injury will become dependent on some substance within the first year. And this could be something that you use to kind of speed up your brain, such as amphetamines, which can be obtained either through prescription or sometimes illegally. You can also use things to slow down the brain, to kind of quiet it down. And those would be individuals that would get into marijuana use or abuse, as well as alcohol abuse, which is the number one, but that’s the first issue, somebody tries to deal with their traumatic brain injury by increasing the amount of activity that the brain has or decreasing that activity.