Memory and Damage from TBI and ABI Essay Example

victims of TBI and ABI to recover and run some of the day-to-day operations.

Introduction

When people think of memory and what is found in memories, they think of things like the childhood, what they did for the day, their first love, car, pets, friends and where they schooled among other things. Memories serve as one of those things that people take for granted and very few people give little thought about memories. A memory helps a person in day-to-day operations by knowing how to perform daily tasks and live. People learn and interact as a result of the memory and everything else revolves around the memory. The paper will look at different aspect of memory such as good memory like “The hippocampus that helps to solidify the pattern of connections that form a memory. However, the memory is dependent on the solidity of the connections between individual brain cells (Ashford 2010).

This part of the brain sorts out what humans learn and sends it to different parts of the brain as it is stored from implicit memory. The paper will examine the damage of TBI and ABI brain both of which comprise of destruction of the brains, but done so in different ways. “A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is defined as a blow or jolt to the head or a penetrating head injury that disrupts the function of the brain (CDC, 2008).” TBI brain damage is caused by blow to the head that happen mostly in sports and accidents among other areas. It is caused by blunt force to the head where the brain is shaken and damage occurs. Acquired brain injury (ABI) on the other hand refers to any

type of brain damage that occurs after birth. It may comprise of damage sustained by infection, disease, lack of oxygen or a blow to the head (Department of Health and Human Services, 2016).The damage is caused by drug use, stoke, dementia, drinking, drowning, and other things that can cut off oxygen to the brain.

The form of the TBI and memory is examined based on a situation where a blunt force to the head occurs by accident, playing sports while working as a police officer, military, among others. The ABI is then perceived as something that occurs when you lose oxygen by experiencing situations such as stroke, drown, drug use, and other forms of diseases like dementia. It is imperative making a difference between ABI and TBI even though they are listed as common types of brain injury resulting damage to the brain function. People suffering from the two types of damages experience problems in learning, problem-solving together with retention and even behavioral problems with time. Time is the only thing that has the ability of healing the brain other then treating the systems and helping the person learn new ways to do things such as “Cognitive impairment was defined as having difficulties with cognitive abilities, such as memory, executive function or attention. Aphasia and apraxia are also common after brain injury but often impair the use of assistive technology and therefore require a very specific kind of technological aid.

These patient populations were excluded. We included only papers describing interventions with portable assistive technology that provide continuous support throughout the day (like cell phone, pager or PDA) (De Joode et al., 2010)”. Given the level of

technological advancement experienced in the modern world, it is easy to realize that having cellphones, laptops, tablets and watch phones among others is not beneficial to victims of stroke, dementia, TBI or any other mental damage.

Memory

Every living person relies on the memory for effective operation of day-to-day activities. Victims of TBI and ABI experience different memory conditions from normal people.

A focus on two sections of memory that comprise of recall and recognition is critical in understanding memory damage. It is through the use of recall and recognition that people with good memory function effectively as the functions enable them in making sound decisions. In the two-stage theory of memory Bahrick (1970) describes memory as a two-stage process: recognition and recall. In recognition, the individual has a sense that the information that they are trying to retrieve is familiar, but may be unable to call back specific details, whereas in recall, the individual is able to fully retrieve the memory in full detail. In the theory of encoding specificity Tulving (1982) asserts that, the memory can be retrieved by using additional cues, such as the environmental context in recalling the desired memory. It is possible to trigger these desired memories by different events in life such as smells, sights, touch, or even sounds.

These functions have the ability of bringing back memories for past events of one’s life unless one has damage to memories. As such, it is indicative that it helps in bringing back desires that are part of life that are deemed useful. Notable instances comprise of when a person first learn to drive a car, reads a book, learns to write a

name as well as other things learned in school among others. Even events in life that are taught such as first learning to walk or learning to dance may serve as encoding memories that are stored in the brain.

However, as people age changes are experienced and it is normal to forget things in life and that is a part ageing. Nonetheless if an individual has damage to the brain then he or she will age the brain faster than normal as with the case of victims of TBI and ABI. It is equally important to focus on measures towards providing better help people with TBI and ABI and the importance of that need. “More than 200,000 survivors of moderate and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) are discharged from American hospitals annually. Many of these survivors suffer chronic memory impairment, leading to diminished quality of life (James et al., 2014).” Although people survive the damage of TBI/ABI resulting from different incidents like drowning, accident, sports, or work related the ability to recall memory is damaged rather it is recall a person, how to cook a mean, tie a shoe, and any other incident, in order to recall the victim must watch another person perform the task in order to learn.

Damage Brain with TBI

With TBI an examination of various aspects of the brain and the damage it will cause the person that endures such damage is crucial.

Such damage to the brain can inflict trauma on the brain that will induce an array of cognitive problems along with the memory process in which is all controlled by memory anyway. In the broadest philosophical sense, cognition is

the mental process of knowing (from the Latin cognoscere, meaning “to come to know). The term’s use in general psychology captures a broad array of mental processes, including sensation, perception, information processing, learning and remembering, experience, imagining, reasoning, and judging (David et al., 2013). With TBI there is more than just one memory that is damage, but for the sake of this discussion the focus is directed to memory and the way TBI affects humans’ memory.

However, the profound concept is that a victim cannot experience one problem having another one as well. Therefore, looking at the whole outline one would see why I thought it might be important to cove the whole attributes of TBI so that one can get the concept of the memory and know that will not be the only problem they face with this type of damage to the brain. There is a way to look at the damage and see the brain and understand the depth of the damage is done with “DTI, a technique that is inherently well-suited for investigating damage to white matter by quantifying the diffusion of water molecules, providing a more accurate representation of white matter disruption (Basser 1995; Basser et al. 1994).

The directionality of water is used to infer the integrity of white matter tracts; that is, diffusion should be greater along the primary orientation of the tract, remaining relatively restricted perpendicular to the fiber. Whilst DTI enables the extraction of several meaningful indices of fiber integrity, fractional anisotropy (FA) isutilized widely as it has the ability of demonstrating water diffusion degree of directionality (Spitz et al., 2013). Even years after the injury, victims may

still experience problems. Considering the vast amount of research that has been done in this field of TBI/ABI there still lacks a specific way to fix the biggest problem they face today that is memory lapse. That may lead to a vast change the life of a victim from knowing the way to tie a show, reading a book, driving a car, recalling family members, or how to cook a meal. However, “Functional brain imaging utilizes several methods to capture brain activity as reflected by regional CMR (rCMR) or regional CBF (rCBF) (Table 6–1).

Clinical functional brain imaging in TBI is currently performed with single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) or posi-tron emission tomography (PET). In both techniques a radioactive isotope is injected into the patient and its uptake is measured to give an indication of rCMR or rCBF. Another technique, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), relies on magnetic qualities of deoxygenated blood to create rapid images of brain blood flow” (Karen et al., 2014). With luck in play, it will allow doctors to understand people with TBI and how to assist them with daily living skills. As for most however, there has been some success with electronics such as cellphones, PDA’s, tablets, laptops, and pager that help them live their daily lives from knowing how to walk as they leave their home for the day even telling them their agenda as they leave their home or work place.

Even though ABI and TBI are listed in the same form, ABI is caused when the oxygen is cut off where as TBI is more on the lines of blunt trauma that affects the brain. Looks can be deceiving,

as it possible to assume that victims of TBI/ABI have recovered, they may be struggling just as a person with a walker, missing parts of the body, and so on. The only difference emanates from the fact that it is impossible missing the brain (memories, cognitive abilities, and pain we endure on a daily bases).

ABI brain damage and memory

ABI is caused when the brain loses oxygen as opposed to stroke, drug use, or even drowning can cause this effect to the brain. ABI is a form of TBI and is something that people fail to take into consideration when using drugs, drink, or even when they are under stress.

However, it happens and has the ability of making people lose their lives as it based on the ability to function as people are hindered from functioning in the same manner prior to the damage. People with ABI have problems with speech, learning, memory, walking, feeding themselves and requires the support of caregivers where ABI is in serious conditions. “Individuals with acquired brain injuries (ABI) often experience depression following injury, with estimated rates between 20 and 40% within the first year and up to 50% thereafter (Fleminger et al., 2003). Previous studies with non-brain-injured individuals have identified that rumination is prevalent in both the development and maintenance of depression. The study aimed to explore how depressive rumination may contribute to over general memory recall in ABI patients, by assessing the effects of manipulating ruminative self-focus on autobiographical memory performance across levels of brain injury Individuals with acquired brain injuries (ABI) often experience depression following injury, with estimated rates between 20 and 40% within the first

year and up to 50% thereafter (Fleminger et al., 2003). Previous studies with non-brain-injured individuals have identified that rumination is prevalent in both the development and maintenance of depression.

The study aimed to explore how depressive rumination may contribute to over general memory recall in ABI patients, by assessing the effects of manipulating ruminative self-focus on autobiographical memory performance across levels of brain injury” (Bessell, et al., 2008). With ABI the memory is not only the problem, but depression becomes a problem as well due to the fact that people realize that they can no longer perform as they used to. It becomes impossible for people to perform the tasks they undertook initially like simple things such as reading a book, driving, finding one’s keys, writing a paper for school, or even making a phone call or send a simple text to a loved one. Victims of ABI experiences significant changes in life until their brain heals irrespective of the time taken to heel.

Due to time taken in recovering, victims of ABI experience depressions once they start thinking about the person they were and realize the person they are becoming now. As such both TBI and ABI make victims forget the normal day-to-day tasks that an individual undertakes. There is a more in-depth look that person may view that look at the different types of memories. These are the RM and PM with the RM commonly referred to as the ability to remember and recall events that have happened in the past or have been previously presented. Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember to perform an intended action at a particular point in

the future (Yip and Man, 2013).

It is evident that that memory is the most common difficulty in TBI and ABI as victims must deal with the memory challenges. Psychologist researchers are still working on way of improving a process that will help people with daily living. Further research is still required on this topic as it is something that people endure on a daily basis from drugs use, strokes, and people that drown since possessing the ability of recalling simple tasks is something people with TBI/ABI mange.

Methodological Principles

How a brain injury affects a person depends on many factors such as the type of injury, the extent of damage, the location of the injury, the onset of treatment, the type of treatment and an individual’s response to treatment. Other dependent factors comprise of the environment and living situation following the injury (Kupfer, 2006). As research and testing continues to find ways of helping people with TBI an ABI there is hope that victims will receive full support.

Testing in educational and clinical settings is considered a tool for evaluation, but RP research demonstrates that the act of retrieving information also strengthens one’s memory trace. That signifies that when persons are quizzed on information during learning (RP), they manage to subsequently recall the information than if they restudied the information multiple times without testing. Translating such mnemonic effect to clinical samples, RP has improved recall after a short delay (45min) in cross-sectional experiments with memory-impaired patients with multiple sclerosis and survivors of severe TBI, 6” (James et al, 2014). Therefore, until there comes more developments to help victims of TBI and ABI, there are still thousands

of dollars each year, day going out to those who suffer from the challenges with hospital bill and rehabilitation cost incurred towards achieving a more productive life. Since memory is something everyone useson a day-to-day basis when communicating, learning and functioning, suffering from TBI/ABI makes this simple task no simple and as a result making operations hard.

(Tulving, 1982)

Conclusion/Summary

When there is still much in addressing the challenges of memory and people suffering from TBI and ABI damage, there is still hope that in time that a solution will come in place to help victims regain their memory. People suffer from these types of damage daily as a result of accidents, sports, strokes, drug use, drowning, and military as well as law enforcement operations. A blow to the head or lack of oxygen to the brain may make someone’s life to change in a matter of moments. A person’s life may change in an instance and without much notice or warning. The memory is essential in the life of a human in that it plays a critical role in running small issues like feeding a pet, driving, tying shoes, cooking and among others.

For some individuals, they experience interruptions by suffering from TBI and ABI because their brain fails to function effectively. Some devices like cellphone, PDA, pager, or tablet may help victims of memory loss to recall the simple things that most people take for granted in life. It is important noting that various studies are still ongoing on TBI and ABI as well as memory in order to come up with the most effective means of supporting victims of TBI and ABI.

References

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