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Survival and TBI

Words to understand before you start:

1. Survival: how long some-one is likely to live. It is usually figured out using math calculations. In this article, life expectancy and survival mean the same thing.
2. Death rate: the average number of deaths in a group of people, per year.
3. General population: all US citizens combined. "Your Average Joe" represents the general population.
4. Rehabilitation: special hospital care and therapy to help people with TBI recover and have less disability.

This article is about people with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) who had inpatient rehab. It tells you about a research project that we did to learn more about survival or life expectancy over the years, after TBI.

What makes this research project special?

1. It is large. It tracked more than 2100 people who were treated at 15 different rehab hospitals.
2. It covered 12 years. Many studies focus on the first year after a TBI when death rates tend to be higher.
3. It goes beyond the hospital. It even found out the status of people the rehab programs had lost track of. It did this by using Social Security Administration information.
4. It compared people with TBI to the general population.
5. It identified factors that seem to affect people's life expectancy.
6. It has information that is useful to everyone.

What did we learn?

1. Following the first year after injury, 123 people had died. That's a death rate of 5.7%.
2. In this study, having a TBI increased a person's chance of dying by about two times. This was among people who had inpatient rehab for TBI, compared with people of same age, sex and race who did not have a TBI.
3. On average, having a TBI lessens life expectancy by about 7 years. This is an average; your life may not be shortened this much.
4. Life expectancy was less in people who were:
   • older when they were injured
   • unemployed when they were injured
   • among those who were the most severely disabled - even after they finished their rehab.

What does this mean?

1. Being older when you are injured makes it harder. It is harder to recover from the initial injury. It also makes it harder over the years as you age.
2. You can't really change what your employment situation was when you were injured. But, being employed often means being active, having good health and a stable, secure home life. You can continue to strive for that even now! Find something to do that you can look forward to each day.
3. The more severely disabled you are after you complete your TBI rehabilitation program, the more it affects your life expectancy. What should you do? Take care of your health. Keep working on your rehab. Less disability may mean longer life.

If you would like to calculate an estimate of average life expectancy after TBI click here

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