SA's children most at risk of brain injury - and suffer rejection too

Traumatic brain injury kills thousands of South Africans every year, and children are most at risk. They are also about eight times more likely to die from brain injuries compared with their American counterparts.

At Groote Schuur Hospital, out of more than 10 000 trauma cases that are treated there annually, about a quarter involve head injuries. The situation is worse at the Red Cross Children's Hospital where one third of trauma accidents treated involve head injury. Speaking at a brain awareness colloquium at UCT, Graham Fieggen, head of neurosurgery at UCT, said about 2 800 SA children died every year as a result of traumatic brain injury - mainly caused by road accidents and sometimes violence inflicted on children.

However, doctors are making progress in treating brain injury. Fieggan said the drop of the brain injury mortality rate at the Red Cross Children's Hospital was evidence of improving medical care. In 1990, brain injury mortality at that hospital measured at more than 40 percent, but this had been reduced to about 25 percent in 2005, and now the mortality rate stood at only 10 percent.

The problem is not getting as much attention as it should, according to Coma Care SA, a non-governmental organisation that promotes the prevention of head injury and rehabilitation of brain injury survivors.

Addressing the colloquium, held as part of Brain Awareness Week, Jan Webster, the director of Coma Care said that despite statistics showing the level of head injuries, there was insufficient documentation of the medical, financial and social costs. She said traumatic brain injury was also misunderstood: those with brain injuries were even rejected in their own homes and communities, as they were perceived to have "strange behavioural problems". Webster said that while a mild brain injury could take a few weeks or months to recover, severe brain injury took years or even a lifetime of treatment and rehabilitation.

Although most brain injury survivors received medical treatment in hospitals, these patients were discharged to communities that did not know much about the effects or devastation of head injury.

Webster said people who had experienced a serious brain injury had difficulty at school, might lose their job and often had relationship and socialisation problems. However, because a brain injury was not visible, there was poor understanding and tolerance of their condition, and therefore, there was a need for more awareness of brain injury, especially in the workplace and at schools.

Sipokazi Fokazi: The Sunday Independent, 18 March 2012