If you suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI), you may know that it is at least a short-term disability. You’re in the hospital getting medical treatment, so there’s no way that you can work while you recover, at least at the moment.
But what you’re wondering is if the brain injury is ever going to fully heal. Is this similar to having a broken bone or a serious laceration? Or is there a chance that the brain injury isn’t going to heal and that this could turn into a long-term or even permanent disability?
The brain has to search for new neural pathways
As a general rule, the brain (usually) cannot regenerate cells that are lost. When you have other issues, your body can create new cells. Your skin cells can regenerate, for example, as can your red blood cells. More are being produced, so injuries can be repaired with this new material.
Because the brain lacks the ability to do this, for the most part, it has to seek new neural pathways. The only way for healing to take place is if it can work around these lost brain cells and return some of the skills and abilities that you’ve lost.
This simply takes time. Many people have to spend months or even years healing from a brain injury. And there are also many cases in which the brain cannot find viable neural pathways, and so the injury is never going to heal in the true sense. Things are not going to return to the way that they were before that injury.
A situation like this can be precarious and frightening, so make sure you are fully aware of all of your legal options as you navigate this process.