Brain Injury Can Change Everything – Including Your Marriage

July 20, 2021, Kitchener, Ontario

Posted by: Robert Deutschmann, Personal Injury Lawyer

Brain injury can have a myriad of effects on the victim. Cognitive, emotional, and physical changes are common. For some people, the post-accident loved one isn’t recognizable anymore. They’ve lost their memory, or their temperament and personality may be entirely changed.

What We Thought and What We Now Know

These changes have profound impacts on the family of the patient and can place incredible stress on marriages. It was believed that divorce rates increased dramatically after brain injury but new research conducted by Dr. Hammond, The Chair of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Indiana University found that about 66% of patients with TBI remained married for 10 years post-injury. 39% of the marriages that ended in divorce did so in the first year and the rest ended within five years.
The study was retrospective and examined over 1400 patients with TBI.

It concluded that,

“Most married adults who received inpatient rehabilitation for TBI remained married to the same individual 10 years later. Those who were younger were male and had a history of problematic substance use were at the highest risk for relationship dissolution. Findings have implications for content, timing, and delivery of marital interventions. Substance use education and prevention appear to be important aspects of marital support.”

This is good news as we do know that marital stability is key to recovery and re-entry into the community, return to work, emotional function and rehab.

The study also found that:

“TBI often leads to changes (eg, in cognition, social-emotional functioning, personality, financial status, role changes) that may strain relationships.2,3 However, research characterizing marital stability after TBI is limited.”

Other key findings of the study included that:

• Older patients were less likely to divorce
• Female patients were less likely to divorce
• Patients with no pre-existing history of drug or alcohol abuse were more likely to stay married
• Treatment of TBI and intervention aimed at substance abuse and use prevention were key to staying married

You can read the entire research paper here.

If you or a loved one have suffered TBI due to an accident caused by someone else’s negligence call the experienced team at Deutschmann Law today.

About Deutschmann Law

Deutschmann Law serves South-Western Ontario with offices in Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Woodstock, Brantford, Stratford and Ayr. The law practice of Robert Deutschmann focuses almost exclusively in personal injury and disability insurance matters. For more information, please visit www.deutschmannlaw.com or call us at 1-519-742-7774.

It is important that you review your accident benefit file with one of our experienced personal injury / car accident lawyers to ensure that you obtain access to all your benefits which include, but are limited to, things like physiotherapy, income replacement benefits, vocational retraining and home modifications.