In a nutshell, it seems that changes to people’s personality and self control are much harder for relatives to deal with than physical disabilities, or other cognitive disabilities like memory problems or problems with speech & language. Of course, these other problems are also difficult to deal with, and every couple is different, so its very hard to measure the impact on a couple and their relationship in a quantitative way. For this reason, half of my research is based on qualitative interviews with family members of brain injured people.

I should also take this opportunity to promote Headway, a charity for brain injured people and their families, with whom I’ve worked on and off with for 6 years now as both a volunteer and an employee. Headway do a lot to give social support to both brain injured people, and their families. They have branches in many parts of the country, and anyone reading this article who has a brain injury, or a brain injured family member, can find a local branch on their website here:
http://www.headway.org.uk/