Traumatic Brain Injury

MrsDrink

Deleted to protect the patient. But I'll leave the replies incase this helps anyone else whose loved one has suffered a TBI.

rachbc

have you tried to get in touch with Headway? they should be able to offer advice on the next steps.

http://www.headway.org.uk/home.aspx

Mojisola

There's also PALS - https://www.pals.nhs.uk/

If the hospital could communicate better with you about their plans for your FIL, you'd know how to work out where to go next.

MrsDrink

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Mindless_Clone

OP, I am sorry to hear you are going through this with your FIL. I recently went through similar frustrations with the NHS and my mum (stuck on a geriatric ward and receiving no treatment for her medical condition... we were actually told by one doctor she had dementia - which she blatantly hasn't got) and nobody telling us or her what was going on and, actually plans for her ongoing care changing almost daily in the end. As a consequence, she was readmitted twice due to mismanagement of her condition, and that was after she'd been sent home without admission previously. In my (albeit limited) experience, once you get past a certain age, the NHS are happy to just expect you to put up with it because you're old.
It took the entire family marching wholesale into the hospitals PALS office and making a complaint - and me telling them that if they didn't watch out they were going to kill my mother with their mismanagement of her condition (which they would have done and, may well have caused her permanent disability anyway).
Anyway this did get them to sit up and take notice. There's no excuse for them not to communicate to you; for consultants not to attend to him and for him not to be transferred to a proper ward/hospital where his brain injury can be properly assessed and treated.
Go into PALS, say you want to make a complaint... make sure you have it all written down first so you know exactly what it is you want to happen.
After we complained, they did get better but, frankly, we did need to keep right on top of them still and make a bit of a pest of ourselves to get them to give my mum the care she needed.

I hope you can sort out your FIL's care to your satisfaction.

MrsDrink

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Racheldevon

I just wrote a really long post to accidently delete it...

I use to work for Headway as a manager, I would recommend contacting Headway UK, and also finding out through them what services are offered where you live as this varies from area to area, with each county usually being affiliated to Headway UK

There's also BIRT (Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust) - which is worth contacting, and may be a possible step in rehab following discharge from hospital

Ask to meet with the neurologist re: the MRI and insist on the scan.

Ask to meet with /a referral to a clinical neuropsychologist re the rehab and addressing the cognitive and other difficulties that often occur

Find out if the hospital/trust have a neurological rehabilitation hospital/unit etc, several do, and these are usually where people go once medically stable for intensive rehab re physio/OT/psychology input etc

BIRT have several rehab homes which may also be a possibility following discharge

Further down the line Headway will hopefully be able to offer community based outreach services to support rehabilitation, perhaps alongside other services depending on the assessed needs

This book may support you in understanding some of the changes
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-Injury-Practical-Speechmark-Editions/dp/0863884512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344336723&sr=8-1

and the brain injury workbook by Trevor Powell has useful rehab exercises and info sheets for family, though you are probably a way off needing these just yet http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Brain-Injury-Workbook-Rehabilitation/dp/0863883184/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344336409&sr=8-1

MrsDrink

**deleted**

Racheldevon

I forgot to mention that funding to access some of the services may depend on social care assessment, often with Headway their staff will carry out the assessment and then refer into social care stating what support/rehab they believe necessary etc and then fight to get the funding.

I'm sure it's a very difficult time, and having goals to focus on will be important. It's a long road ahead when someone has a TBI/ABI, and as his immediate family you need to ensure you also look after your own needs, and get the support you require, because it can be challenging to deal with the changes emotional/physical/personality/behavioural that are quite common (I'm not saying this to add to your stress, rather to be realistic and encourage you to also look after yourself throughout the path ahead)