New insights for coping with personality changes in acquired brain injury

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-06/ip-nif062514.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 25-Jun-2014
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New insights for coping with personality changes in acquired brain injury

Researchers challenge traditional approaches to manage ABI-associated behavior in NeuroRehabilitation

Amsterdam, NL, June 25, 2014 – Individuals with brain injury and their families often struggle to accept the associated personality changes. The behavior of individuals with acquired brain injury (ABI) is typically associated with problems such as aggression, agitation, non-compliance, and depression. Treatment goals often focus on changing the individual's behavior, frequently using consequence-based procedures or medication. In the current issue of NeuroRehabilitation leading researchers challenge this approach and recommend moving emphasis from dysfunction to competence.

"Behavior dysfunction may be best construed as a sentinel rather than a cause. It signals that a person is beyond his or her personal capacities and needs contextually relevant supports," says Guest Editor Harvey E. Jacobs, PhD, a noted clinician practicing in Richmond, Virginia. "The purpose of this special issue is to move beyond the person and the brain and to understand more clearly how our behavior, especially those involved in service delivery or caregiving, directly or through our systems, diagnostic and treatment perspectives, cultures, and perceptions, directly affects behavior associated with ABI, with an emphasis on competence over dysfunction."

Eminent experts have contributed a series of insightful reviews.

Randall D. Buzan, Jeff Kupfer, Dixie Eastridge, and Andres Lema-Hincapie note that accepting post-injury personality changes is complicated by tacit assumptions about the nature of personality, free will, and the relationship between the mind and the brain. They challenge the Western Dualistic model of mind and body by reviewing the constructional nature of perception and the neurologic bases of affect, morality, empathy, and sense of self, and propose embodiment theory as one viable solution to the mind body dilemma.

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