Brain injury and work performance

Abstract

Among the many causes of brain injury, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the most common cause of disability and death in young people (Coronado et al.2006). Moreover, one of the most socially relevant and personally meaningful domains of post-injury disability is significantly reduced work capacity and performance, often during the period of psychosocial development in which young people are entering the workforce. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the current state of our knowledge regarding vocational outcomes following TBI. The focus will be selectively organized around the vocational implications of moderate and severe TBI, and the consequences and outcomes of mild TBI (mTBI) will not be addressed in detail (see Fraser et al. 2010, this volume for additional information about mTBI). This chapter will review the definition and epidemiology of TBI; the terminology and conventions related to classification of injury severity; the physical, cognitive, and emotional-behavioral consequences of TBI; and the vocational outcomes associated with moderate and severe TBI, including the variables and processes which may predict, mediate, and moderate various kinds of work outcomes. The chapter will summarize the conclusions of recent review articles, the selective findings of some methodologically stronger individual studies, the relationships among sex and ethnicity/race and employment following TBI, and the trends and limitations of extant literature in this area. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.