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Brain Injury Stimulation Exercises

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1.4 million people in the United States experience a traumatic brain injury every year. Brain injuries can be devastating. Often, people with brain injuries are unable to live independently. Their thoughts, feelings and behaviors may all be affected by their brain injury. Fortunately, many of these skills can be recovered by engaging in brain injury stimulation exercises.

  1. Games

    • According to the Brain Resource Foundation, many of the games that most people played as a child can actually serve as effective brain stimulation exercises following a brain injury. Notably, many of these exercises can be performed at home by yourself or with the help of a loved one. Some examples include jigsaw puzzles, simple mazes, solitaire, hangman, word search and fill in the blanks. For a detailed list of how to complete each exercise, see the link below.

    The University of Alabama at Birmingham Traumatic Brain Injury Model System

    • The University of Alabama at Birmingham Traumatic Brain Injury Model System (“the system”) was developed by Dr. Tom Novack and Dr. Jacqueline Blankenship. They system includes over forty activities which assist the individual in recovering his or her thinking skills. The tasks vary in difficulty and are organized by the particular skill areas that are being stimulated, including fine motor control, attention and concentration, memory orientation, reasoning and problem solving, visual spatial skills and language skills. The activities include things like working with money, sequencing games and working with clay. You can find a detailed description of all the activities at the link below.

    Deep Brain Stimulation

    • In some severe cases, exercises may not be sufficient to stimulate the brain. In these cases, deep brain stimulation may be necessary. Deep brain stimulation involves surgically implanting a medical device which stimulates the brain through mild electrical signals. In some cases, deep brain stimulation has shown the ability to stimulate and preserve areas of the brain in patients who are in a vegetative state following a severe brain injury.

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