Program Launched to Treat Link Between Domestic Violence and Traumatic Brain Injury

One of the largest (and longest running) domestic violence shelters in the U.S. recently announced plans to develop the first program dedicated to the analysis and treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in women and children coping with domestic violence. Much like professional sports players and military personnel, women and children impacted by domestic violence are more likely than the general public to suffer from a TBI. Previous studies of domestic-violence shelters have found that an estimated 92 percent of women had been hit in the head by their partners, 83 percent had been both hit in the head and severely shaken and nearly eight percent had been hit in the head over 20 times in the previous year. The Sojourner BRAIN Program will serve as a center of leadership for developing a body of knowledge regarding the incidence, short- and long-term effects and treatment of TBI in the domestic violence population. “Accounting for the incidence of TBI in victims of domestic violence could potentially result in 20 million women exhibiting signs and symptoms of TBI each year — a number that is 12-times greater than any published incidence of TBI in the general population,” said the CEO of The CACTIS Foundation, one of the Sojourner Center’s partners. In addition to creating a meaningful database and assessing and treating TBI at Sojourner Center, the Sojourner BRAIN Program will inform and share standards of care, procedures, protocols and clinical practices with other domestic violence and social-service providers, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, physicians, pediatricians and other professionals. To read more about this program, click here.