Fact Sheet:
Traumatic Brain Injury:
Selected Statistics

Introduction

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an insult to the brain caused by an impact (e.g., fall or car accident), or internal damage (e.g., gunshot or surgical intervention). Acquired brain injury is an injury to the brain which is not hereditary, congenital, or degenerative that has occurred after birth and includes anoxia, aneurysms, infections to the brain and strokes.  Although not always visible, brain injuries may cause enduring physical, emotional, intellectual and social changes for the survivor. Long-term effects place an enormous emotional and financial burden on the individual's family and strain medical and other service systems due to high costs and often life-long needs.

Magnitude

• About 1.4 million people will experience a brain injury of some type each year in the United States.
• Each year more people will sustain a traumatic brain injury than will develop Multiple Sclerosis, Spinal Cord Injury, HIV/AIDS, and Breast Cancer combined. 
• Each year 300,000 individuals suffer brain injuries severe enough to require sustained hospitalization, with an estimated 124,000 resulting in a lasting disability.
• Traumatic brain injuries account for an estimated 34% of all injury deaths in the United States.

Who Is at Risk?

• TBI affects males at twice the rate of females and higher mortality rates among males indicate that males are more likely than females to suffer severe injuries.
• Individuals age 15 to 24 have the highest risk of TBI. The risk also increases after age 60.
• Residents in rural areas have a higher rate of both fatal and non-fatal traumatic brain injuries.

Causes of TBI

• Falls cause 28% of all traumatic brain injuries.  Motor vehicle crashes account for 20%, being struck by or against an object cause 19%, assaults are 11%, other causes are 10% and bicycle incidences are 3% of traumatic brain injuries.  There are 9% of traumatic brain injuries that have an unknown cause.
• Child abuse accounts for 64% of infant/child brain injuries. 
• 140,000 children a year sustain bicycle-related head injuries.
• Nearly half (49%) of all brain injuries severe enough to require hospitalization are caused by motor vehicle accidents.
• Alcohol was involved in 41% of all fatal crashes and 7% of all crashes in 1996.
• While brain injuries due to car accidents have declined from 1984 to 1992, brain injuries resulting from firearms increased 13% during the same period.
• About 5% to 10% of skiing accidents result in head injuries.

Cost of Care

• The direct and indirect costs of traumatic brain injury in the U. S. have been estimated to be $60 billion annually.
• In 1991 survivor costs accounted for $31.7 billion and fatal brain injuries cost another $16.6 billion.
• The lifetime costs for one person surviving a severe TBI can reach in excess of $4 million.
• An estimate of medical and non-medical (e.g., home modifications, vocational rehabilitation, health insurance) per TBI survivor averages $151,587.
• Acute rehabilitation costs for survivors of a severe TBI have been shown to average more than $1,000 per day.
• Medical costs are typically the highest for those who do not survive.

Effects of Traumatic Brain Injury

• Although the largest group of TBI survivors are young adults in their prime working years, many survivors, particularly those with a severe TBI, are unable to return to work.
• Survivors of a severe brain injury are likely to experience prolonged anxiety and depression, and are at a high risk for loss of friendships and social support.
• Approximately 20% of survivors of severe TBI remain unresponsive for at least one month.
• The majority of individuals who survive a period of coma eventually regain consciousness. Data from the Traumatic Coma Data Bank indicate that of 650 patients who experienced a vegetative state after a brain injury, only 14% were released from the hospital in a coma. And of those, about half had regained consciousness after one year's time.