Brain Injuries and Depression

People who experience serious head injuries often require days -- if not weeks -- of medical care to get back on their feet. For most of them, the mental aftershocks will last long after they've checked out of the hospital.

More than half of all people who suffer a traumatic brain injury will become depressed in the year after the injury, a rate eight times higher than in the general population, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. And only about 45 percent of those who do become depressed are likely to receive adequate treatment.

"We're not talking about normal day-to-day changes in mood, but symptoms that last for more than two weeks," says the lead author of the study, Charles Bombardier, Ph.D., professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

To read more of this article from CNN.

Tennesseans seeking assistance with a brain injury can contact Project BRAIN Coordinator Paula Denslow at paula_d@tndisability.org.