Types of Brain Injury

People often get confused in trying to understand the different types of brain injury.  There are in fact two types of brain injury;  Acquired and Congenital.

1.  Acquired Brain Injury – the ‘acquired’ part means that the person wasn’t born with their injury – it is a result of an accident or illness for example a road traffic accident or a tumour.

An acquired brain injury may be the result of:

Traumatic brain injury (TBI)

This is the result of an impact to the outside of the head.  This may be the result of a fall, assault, or a car accident, for example.  There are a number of factors which will affect a traumatic brain injury, such as the type, severity and location.

For further information click the picture below.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Other forms of Acquired brain injury (ABI) (non traumatic)
This is the result of things happening on in the inside of the body such as a Stroke, Lack of Oxygen (Hypoxic/Anoxic) and Other causes. The effects are often very similar to those of a Traumatic brain injury, however there are key differences that make treating and coping with an Acquired brain injury quite different.
For further information on these click the relevant picture below.

Lack of Oxygen

Other Causes

2. Congenital brain injury (CBI)

A congenital brain injury (CBI) occurs whilst a baby is still in the womb. This may be due to disorders, genetic defects or as a result of something happening to the mother during pregnancy. The severity of an injury is very dependent on its type and location.  There are many examples of a congenital brain injury, Hydrocephalus being one of them.