How can you help?
There are different ways to support your injured parent and your family. Support can be given in lots of ways:
- Being a part of your parent’s recovery by attending the hospital
- If it’s not offered, ask to be part of your parent’s rehabilitation
- Doing what you can to help around the home
- Putting yourself in your parent’s shoes by trying to understand what they’re going through
- Keep a positive attitude
- Understand that people react differently (sadness, humour, keeping busy)
- Talk when something is on your mind
- Take care of yourself
It is normal for people to experience different changes after a brain injury. Have a look at the table and see how you could help your parent if they have had changes to their:
| Are there changes to your parent’s? | Your parent may… | You can… |
| Memory | – Find it hard to learn new things – Be forgetful – Lose things – Not remember what you said | – Repeat information – Encourage the use of a diary or memory book – Have special places for belongings – Talk calmly |
| Thinking | – Take longer to understand information or do activities | – Give extra time – Speak clearly – Talk about 1 thing at a time – Try not to interrupt or answer questions for them |
| How tired they feel | – Need to sleep more – Get tired quickly – Get irritable easily | – Encourage them to have a rest – Do harder activities when at their best (morning) – Keep activities short |
| Behaviours | – Be more angry or abrupt with you – Have difficulty understanding emotions – Be unaware of their behaviours | – Talk calmly – Take yourself away from uncomfortable situations – Don’t take it personally |
| Attention | – Appear not to be listening – Miss details – Have difficulty concentrating – Be easily distracted – Get bored easily | – Use short and simple sentences – Keep activities short – Write things down – Reduce distractions – Carefully select when you ask for their attention |
| How they problem solve | – Difficulty working out solutions – Unable to generate new ideas | – Do things that are achievable – Break tasks down into small steps – Introduce 1 thing at a time |
| Self-monitoring | – Often break rules – Not realise they have made an error – ‘Hog’ conversations – Keep talking when others are no longer interested | – Talk about an activity and their role in it – Provide feedback in a constructive way – Use agreed signals (i.e. to leave) – Encourage turn-taking |
| Reasoning | – Have trouble changing their thinking – Unable to put themselves in someone elses ‘shoes’ – Not like, or not support, change – Make bad decisions | – Use basic language – Give advanced warning to changes (like routines) – Try to give explanations and reasons |
| Flexibility | – Hard to adapt to change – Seem ‘stuck’ and unable to move past issues – Unable to develop strategies to cope in situations – Continuing to talk about the same thing | – Respectfully voice your frustration and stop – Give other suggestions on how things could be done – Distract them and move to another activity |
| Planning and organisation | – Have difficulty getting prepared to do a task – Difficulty working out the steps to a task in the right order – Unable to understand consequences of their actions or behaviour – Challenges to organising their thoughts – Difficulty explaining things to other people | – Encourage thinking about a task before starting it – Give written information or steps in the right order – Talk them through the task – Make a timetable to help with routines – Keep environments the same and organised |
| Insight | – Be unaware of their thinking and physical challenges – Make unrealistic goals – Set hard expectations | – Give details about what’s happening – Help work out good and achievable goals |
