It’s estimated that greater than one particular million adults in the UK are at the moment 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 order Avasimibe 
number of things like improved emergency response following injury (Powell, 2004); much more cyclists interacting with heavier website traffic flow; enhanced participation in unsafe sports; and bigger numbers of extremely old folks within the population. According to Good (2014), the most widespread causes of ABI inside the UK are falls (22 ?43 per cent), assaults (30 ?50 per cent) and road traffic accidents (circa 25 per cent), even though the latter category accounts for any disproportionate variety of more severe brain injuries; other causes of ABI incorporate sports injuries and domestic violence. Brain injury is much more frequent amongst males than ladies and shows peaks at ages fifteen to thirty and more than eighty (Nice, 2014). International data show comparable patterns. As an example, within the USA, the Centre for Disease Handle estimates that ABI affects 1.7 million Americans each and every year; children aged from birth to four, older teenagers and adults aged more than sixty-five possess the highest prices of ABI, with men much more susceptible than women across all age ranges (CDC, undated, Traumatic Brain Injury in the United states: Truth Sheet, out there on line at www.cdc.gov/ traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html, accessed December 2014). There’s also increasing awareness and concern inside the USA about ABI amongst military personnel (see, e.g. Okie, 2005), with ABI rates reported to exceed onefifth of combatants (Okie, 2005; Terrio et al., 2009). Whilst this article will focus on present UK policy and practice, the issues which it highlights are relevant to quite a few national contexts.Acquired Brain Injury, Social Function 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 good recovery from their brain injury, whilst other people are left with significant ongoing issues. In addition, as Headway (2014b) cautions, the `initial diagnosis of severity of injury isn’t a dependable indicator of long-term problems’. The potential impacts of ABI are properly described both 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 limited consideration to ABI in social work literature, it truly is worth 10508619.2011.638589 listing some of the typical after-effects: physical difficulties, cognitive issues, impairment of executive functioning, modifications to a person’s behaviour and alterations to emotional regulation and `personality’. For many persons with ABI, there are going to be no physical indicators of impairment, but some may well experience a range of physical issues like `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 specifically common after cognitive activity. ABI may possibly also bring about cognitive difficulties for instance problems with journal.pone.0169185 memory and lowered speed of facts processing by the brain. These physical and cognitive aspects of ABI, while difficult for the individual concerned, are comparatively simple for social workers and others to conceptuali.