Key Facts about Brain Injury

The brain, along with the spinal cord and network of nerves, controls the information flow throughout the body, voluntary actions such as walking, reading, and talking, and involuntary reactions such as breathing and digestion. It is vulnerable to injury and acquired brain injury can be caused by a whole variety of different means.

The major causes of head injury are road traffic accidents, falls and accidents at home or at work. In more recent years assaults are increasingly a cause of head injury. However it happens, the symptoms are caused because a part of the brain has either been damaged or destroyed.

Each year, around 1.4 million people attend hospital A&E in the UK following head injury. Of those, only around 135,000 people will be admitted due to the severity of their injury. As many as 75 per cent of mild brain injuries go unreported and unassessed by medical professionals.