Last updated on September 18, 2023 by Lori Pace
Serious injuries cause stress for accident victims and their families. There are concerns that the injuries may affect the victim’s financial well-being and ability to care for themselves and others. These fears can strain relationships.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can be especially difficult to accept. The body cannot regenerate brain cells, so traumatic brain injuries often leave accident victims with permanent changes. Treatment may help an injured person regain some function, but it requires an investment of time and money, and the results are uncertain.
divorce statistics
These relationship tensions are most evident in marriages, which can evolve, deteriorate, or even end.
From 1960 to 1980, the divorce rate in the United States increased steadily.
In any given year, three in 1,000 married couples file for divorce. Over the course of a marriage’s lifetime, there is a 41% chance that it will end in divorce.
This statistic is a bit misleading because people can get married and divorced multiple times. The number of people divorcing two different spouses is the same as two couples divorcing once.
Still, the number of divorce filings remains alarmingly high. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 60,000 divorce cases are filed each year in Florida alone.
Brain injury statistics
In 2019, more than 223,000 people required hospitalization due to TBI. It also does not include undiagnosed TBI. Even with these warnings, hospitals treated more than 600 Americans with TBI every day in 2019.
Older adults are at higher risk for TBI than younger adults. Accident victims aged 75 or older account for more than 30% of TBI patients. Men are twice as likely as women to require hospitalization for a TBI.
The most common causes of TBI include:
These three causes account for approximately 70% of TBIs in Florida.
Effects of traumatic brain injury
TBI can take many different forms and produce many different symptoms. Some types of TBI include:
concussion
A layer of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cushions your brain. Under normal forces, cerebrospinal fluid prevents the brain from hitting the inside of the skull, much like bubble wrap protects the contents of a box.
But when you experience severe force, such as the impact of a fall or the whiplash of a car accident, the cerebrospinal fluid must exert tremendous pressure on your brain to slow it down. This stress can damage brain cells and cause inflammation in the brain.
As your brain swells and its temperature rises, you may experience:
- Headache
- blurred vision
- tinnitus
- Dizziness
- confusion
- memory loss
- drowsiness
- clumsy
These symptoms usually resolve within two months. However, in some cases, victims experience long-term post-concussion syndrome.
These symptoms may include:
- personality change
- frustrated
- anxiety
- paranoid
- Outburst of anger
As you may be aware, these symptoms can be damaging to the spouse of an accident victim.
contusion
Under extreme forces, cerebrospinal fluid cannot slow down the brain enough to prevent it from hitting the inside of the skull. When it hits the skull, small blood vessels in the brain can rupture, and the brain can develop bruises or contusions.
Bleeding deprives brain cells of oxygen, causing them to die. Leaking blood can also squeeze the brain, cutting off blood flow from intact blood vessels.
Contusions can cause permanent brain damage.
Exact symptoms depend on the location of the brain lesion and may include:
Sometimes, a contusion can lead to coma or a persistent vegetative state.
hypoxic injury
Hypoxic injury occurs when the brain is starved of oxygen. Like all cells, brain cells require oxygen for cellular metabolism. But unlike other cells, your body cannot regenerate dead brain cells. After four minutes of being deprived of oxygen, your brain will suffer permanent brain damage.
These injuries may be due to:
- drown
- asphyxia
- Poisoned
- excess
- severe bleeding
These injuries can result in a variety of physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms. These symptoms may include:
- Shortened attention span
- Difficulty understanding and solving problems
- learning disabilities
- loss of coordination
Because of these difficulties, accident victims may have difficulty getting on the job or training for a new job.
Divorce rates among TBI survivors
TBI survivors and their spouses face significant challenges. Traumatic brain injuries can cause debilitating symptoms, including changes in personality and emotional regulation. Some spouses may even feel that a traumatic brain injury survivor is no longer the one for their marriage.
Additionally, a TBI may result in temporary or permanent disability. Without the ability to work, victims and their families may face significant financial hardship. In addition to lost income, the family faces expensive medical bills for medical treatment, physical therapy, occupational therapy and mental health counseling.
With these issues in mind, divorce for traumatic brain injury survivors and their spouses seems reasonable. Money problems, growing estrangement, and communication problems are often the top reasons for divorce, all of which can arise after a traumatic brain injury.
Several studies have examined divorce rates among survivors of traumatic brain injury. One study found the divorce rate to be as high as 78%.
Follow-up studies did not find the same extremely high divorce rates. But even the most optimistic studies find that divorce rates among TBI survivors and their spouses are about 2 percent higher than among other couples.
Some of the factors in this study that increased the risk of divorce include:
- Young people, young couples are more likely to divorce than older couples
- Severity, severe TBI is more likely to lead to divorce than mild TBI
- Duration, shorter marriages are more likely to end than longer marriages
So, traumatic brain injury manifests like most marital problems. Couples most likely to survive a traumatic brain injury are those who are more mature, have spent more time together, and face less severe obstacles.
Traumatic brain injury may lead to divorce
A happy marriage never ends in divorce. Many factors can contribute to an unhappy spouse. Instead of bringing couples together, the problems caused by a TBI can break them up and lead to divorce.
