Traumatic Brain Injury Essay -- Health, Diseases

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a sophisticated problem because of different reasons. Among the reasons are their difficulties to be diagnosed early in majority of the cases. This is because either the damage in most cases is not visible or the brain trauma does not receive the attention it deserves since patients with head injuries often times have other injuries. The other problem with head injury is that it is associated with numerous disorders and often results in different psychological symptoms that can complicate the diagnosis and treatment. It may be associated with depression, personality problems, anxiety, paranoia, or apathy. Impulsive aggression which this paper deals with is one of the challenging and complex problems that traumatic brain injury is associated with. Aggressive behavior is one of the most disruptive consequences of TBI. Its enduring problems tend to disrupt families, care givers and above all to the patient whose new behavior becomes obstacle to return to the usual role. It is also said to be the most frequent and very treatable out come of TBI. It is possible to classify aggression as impulsive and premeditated. Impulsive aggression is characterized by relatively unplanned and spontaneous, high levels of autonomic arousal and precipitation by provocation associated with negative emotions such as anger or fear It usually represents a response to a perceived stress. In addition, researches show that impulsive aggression is most common after TBI. Impulsive aggression, also referred to as reactive aggression, affective aggression, or hostile aggression, becomes pathological when aggressive responses are exaggerated in relation to the emotional provocation that occurs In contrast, premeditated aggre... ... are associated with poor social functioning. Previous studies reported that aggression was associated with disruption of family relationships Grafman, (1996) and poor occupational performance (Herzberg &Fenwick, 1988). Social integration decreases impulsive behavior and lessens the vulnerability to developing depressive disorders. Furthermore, it has been suggested that social behavior is influenced by the same biological factors as impulsiveness and aggression (i.e., prefrontal modulation and serotonergic function) (Tateno, 2003). Considering the multifactorial nature of impulsive aggression, biological, psychological and social variables that may contribute for this behavior to arise must be approached. The aggressive behavior is evidently disturbing in social life; therefore individuals that are close to the patients must obtain support (Schwarzbold, 2008).