Games & Activities For TBI Sufferers

Transcript:

Now I want to do a video on some ways to interact with someone who’s had a traumatic brain injury. There’s some games you can play with people who’ve had a traumatic brain injury, and it really depends on the level and severity of their injury. Sometimes if they’re having difficulty with memory or concentration, there’s some games that specifically can be used to help with that. And they sound simple, but they actually really make a big difference in getting someone’s brain rewired to help deal with overcoming some of the injury. So first off, Go Fish. That’s a great game and it can be generally for some of the more serious brain injuries, because it helps with pattern recognition, it helps with, when you say the number, “Hey, I’m looking for twos, or I’m looking for sevens.” They have to hear, process, put it into a different thing.

And they’re matching the hearing to the visual to then scanning through their hand, to then figuring out if they need to hand the card over. It’s a great way that involves a bunch of different mental processes that goes from multiple different parts of the brain, that really can, not only is it going to be fun in a good way to spend some time with them, but it can also be a way that you can help push them towards recovery.

Playing Go Fish, sounds like a game, but it actually is a mentally challenging thing for someone with a brain injury because it’s switching so many different aspects of their brain very quickly, and it can help rehabilitate those almost in a way. Some rehabilitation centers actually encourage that specific game to be played. Another one, depending on the nature and severity is sometimes people have difficulty with tremors after a traumatic brain injury or the have some difficulty with some of their fine motor skills is Jenga. Jenga is actually a great one.

It’s pretty simple, especially if there are word-finding difficulties or speech difficulties, Jenga, doesn’t have much of that. It’s just pure focus on exactly fine motor coordination and trying to balance it. And there’s two types of Jenga sets. One’s a pretty small one. That’s the normal one that people play with. That’s great for someone who’s got some better motor coordination skills. If it starts being where there is such a severe brain injury that some of the motor coordination skills are more damaged, you can actually buy Jenga sets they’re significantly larger and you should play them on a big table and make sure that there’s not going to be anything hurt around them. But that being said, it can really … People, even with difficulty with fine motor skills can still play this bigger Jenga set. And it’s something that we regularly recommend to our clients as a way to interact with their family.

Someone times after someone’s suffered a traumatic brain injury, some of the family members will have difficulty acclimating and saying, “Hey, what did we do? How do we interact with them now? The things that they like to do before, they don’t do anymore.” And so anytime there’s a new habit or pattern or something introduced into the household of, “Hey, let’s go get together after dinner and play this game.” It can really try and help bring everyone together and bring up a new thing that’s not only challenging for the person with the brain injury victim, but Jenga is not an easy game.

It gets hard enough at some point for anybody, whether you got a brain injury or not. And so it’s a great way to kind of try and bond around a game that I would recommend. There’s some other games that are worthy of mention, depending on again, the nature and severity of the injury. Scrabble can be fun, Go Fish, there’s some simpler board games, even though depending again, sometimes it’ll be more difficult than not. Mancala is a good one for counting, colors, trying to help figure out some of the rules, but feel free. If you’ve got any other ideas you want to tell us about other ones, feel free to reach out, but that’s, those are the ones that we regularly recommend to our clients.