It truly is estimated that more than 1 million adults SB 202190 web within the UK are at the moment living using the long-term consequences of brain injuries (Headway, 2014b). Rates of ABI have increased significantly in recent years, with estimated increases more than ten years ranging from 33 per cent (Headway, 2014b) to 95 per cent (HSCIC, 2012). This increase is as a result of a variety of aspects including improved emergency response following injury (Powell, 2004); additional cyclists interacting with heavier site visitors flow; elevated participation in harmful sports; and bigger numbers of quite old people within the population. As outlined by Nice (2014), by far the most typical causes of ABI in the UK are falls (22 ?43 per cent), assaults (30 ?50 per cent) and road site visitors accidents (circa 25 per cent), even though the latter category accounts for any disproportionate number of much more severe brain injuries; other causes of ABI include things like sports injuries and domestic violence. Brain injury is more frequent amongst guys than women and shows peaks at ages fifteen to thirty and over eighty (Good, 2014). International information show equivalent patterns. By way of example, within the USA, the Centre for Illness Manage estimates that ABI affects 1.7 million Americans every year; children aged from birth to four, older teenagers and adults aged over sixty-five possess the highest prices of ABI, with guys far more susceptible than women across all age ranges (CDC, undated, Traumatic Brain Injury within the United states: Truth Sheet, offered on the web at www.cdc.gov/ traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html, accessed December 2014). There is certainly also escalating awareness and concern within the USA about ABI amongst military personnel (see, e.g. Okie, 2005), with ABI prices reported to exceed onefifth of combatants (Okie, 2005; Terrio et al., 2009). Whilst this article will concentrate on present UK policy and practice, the problems which it highlights are relevant to quite a few national contexts.Acquired Brain Injury, Social Work and PersonalisationIf the causes of ABI are wide-ranging and unevenly distributed across age and gender, the impacts of ABI are similarly diverse. Some people make a fantastic recovery from their brain injury, whilst other individuals are left with substantial ongoing issues. Additionally, as Headway (2014b) cautions, the `initial diagnosis of severity of injury just isn’t a reputable indicator of long-term problems’. The possible 
impacts of ABI are properly described each in (non-social function) academic literature (e.g. Fleminger and Ponsford, 2005) and in private accounts (e.g. Crimmins, 2001; Perry, 1986). Nevertheless, given the restricted attention to ABI in social perform literature, it can be worth 10508619.2011.638589 listing some of the common after-effects: physical difficulties, cognitive issues, impairment of executive functioning, adjustments to a person’s behaviour and changes to emotional regulation and `personality’. For many persons with ABI, there will be no physical indicators of impairment, but some might expertise a range of physical troubles like `loss of co-ordination, muscle rigidity, paralysis, epilepsy, difficulty in speaking, loss of sight, smell or taste, fatigue, and sexual problems’ (Headway, 2014b), with fatigue and headaches being specifically common soon after cognitive activity. ABI may possibly also lead to cognitive issues for example troubles with journal.pone.0169185 memory and lowered speed of information and facts processing by the brain. These physical and cognitive aspects of ABI, while challenging for the person concerned, are comparatively simple for social workers and other folks to conceptuali.