It is actually estimated that greater than one million adults within the UK are at present get Stattic living together with the long-term consequences of brain injuries (Headway, 2014b). Prices of ABI have increased significantly in recent years, with estimated increases over ten years ranging from 33 per cent (Headway, 2014b) to 95 per cent (HSCIC, 2012). This increase is resulting from a range of factors such as improved emergency response following injury (Powell, 2004); additional cyclists interacting with heavier targeted traffic flow; improved participation in unsafe sports; and bigger numbers of really old men and women inside the population. According to Good (2014), essentially the most prevalent causes of ABI within the UK are falls (22 ?43 per cent), assaults (30 ?50 per cent) and road targeted traffic accidents (circa 25 per cent), although the latter category accounts for any disproportionate quantity of more severe brain injuries; other causes of ABI include things like sports injuries and domestic violence. Brain injury is far more popular amongst guys than females and shows 
peaks at ages fifteen to thirty and more than eighty (Nice, 2014). International information show equivalent patterns. As an example, within the USA, the Centre for Illness Control estimates that ABI affects 1.7 million Americans every single year; kids aged from birth to 4, older teenagers and adults aged over sixty-five possess the highest prices of ABI, with guys additional susceptible than females across all age ranges (CDC, undated, Traumatic Brain Injury inside the Usa: Fact Sheet, out there on-line at www.cdc.gov/ traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html, accessed December 2014). There is also increasing awareness and concern within the USA about ABI amongst military personnel (see, e.g. Okie, 2005), with ABI prices reported to exceed onefifth of combatants (Okie, 2005; Terrio et al., 2009). While this article will focus on present UK policy and practice, the challenges which it highlights are relevant to several national contexts.Acquired Brain Injury, Social Work and PersonalisationIf the causes of ABI are wide-ranging and unevenly distributed across age and gender, the impacts of ABI are similarly diverse. Some individuals make a very good recovery from their brain injury, whilst other people are left with considerable ongoing issues. Furthermore, as Headway (2014b) cautions, the `initial diagnosis of severity of injury will not be a trusted indicator of long-term problems’. The prospective impacts of ABI are well described each in (non-social perform) academic literature (e.g. Fleminger and Ponsford, 2005) and in private accounts (e.g. Crimmins, 2001; Perry, 1986). Nevertheless, provided the restricted consideration to ABI in social operate literature, it is actually worth 10508619.2011.638589 listing a number of the typical after-effects: physical troubles, cognitive issues, impairment of executive functioning, changes to a person’s behaviour and changes to emotional regulation and `personality’. For a lot of individuals with ABI, there will be no physical indicators of impairment, but some may perhaps experience a selection of physical difficulties including `loss of co-ordination, muscle rigidity, paralysis, epilepsy, difficulty in speaking, loss of sight, smell or taste, fatigue, and sexual problems’ (Headway, 2014b), with fatigue and headaches getting especially common right after cognitive activity. ABI may well also bring about cognitive issues which include challenges with journal.pone.0169185 memory and lowered speed of info processing by the brain. These physical and cognitive aspects of ABI, while difficult for the individual concerned, are relatively effortless for social workers and others to conceptuali.
