This week, we were having an online discussion about suicide, and we shared a study from earlier this year finding that persons who have suffered even a single concussion may be at a much higher risk for suicide.

What really struck me is how these risks apply to my clients.

In a Scientific American article about the study, Dr. Donald Redelmeier, one of the study’s lead authors stated:

The typical patient I see is a middle-aged adult, not elite athlete.  And the usual circumstances for acquiring a concussion are not while playing football; it is when driving in traffic and getting into a crash, when missing a step and falling down a staircase, when getting overly ambitious about home repairs — the everyday activities of life.

These are the things we routinely see in our practice. Over the last year, I’ve represented clients who have had brain injuries in car wrecks, bicycle wrecks, slip-and-fall accidents, and more.

Too often the diagnoses of these injuries is slow, and in many cases, not recognized until very late in the process.   This delays the treatment, including the psychological treatment, that clients need to help them start the road to recovery from these devastating injuries.