Brain Injury

Rebuilding the Lives of People with Brain Injury

Each year, 50,000 Canadians experience a brain injury. 

The injury may be the result of a car accident or a fall. Or it may be caused by a medical problem such as a stroke, brain aneurysm or cardiac arrest.

Whatever the cause, a brain injury can be devastating. Individuals often experience loss of memory and problems with behaviour. They may have difficulty speaking. Balance and movement can be affected.

Brain injury can change people’s lives dramatically—and the lives of their families and friends.

Toronto Rehab—Maximizing Life

At Toronto Rehab, we maximize life. We help individuals with brain injuries regain their abilities and their confidence. We help them regain their independence as much as possible so that they can return to living safely at home or in the community. Brain injuries affect everyone differently and our care reflects each person's individuality. Our interprofessional health care team works with individuals and their families to develop an individualized treatment plan that meets their needs and goals. We focus on superior outcomes for each and every patient.

Toronto Rehab provides a number of specialized services to meet the needs of individuals with brain injury (often called an Acquired Brain Injury or ABI):

• Neuro Physical Service – for people who have reduced physical mobility and function as a result of their brain injury.
• Neuro Cognitive Service –for people whose primary needs are related to thinking and behavioural skills.
• Stroke Service– designed especially for individuals with brain injury related to a stroke.
• Neurology Service – an outpatient assessment program for individuals who have a head, brain or neck injury—usually through a work-related accident.

Finding Solutions

Toronto Rehab is a leader in brain injury research and we integrate that research into all the care we provide.

In fact, our researchers work side by side with the health care team. Our patients participate in research and benefit from discoveries as we make them.

We focus on new and effective solutions to help people now. For example we’re exploring whether providing twice as much therapy a day for people with brain injuries improves recovery.

We’re also sharing our innovations with rehabilitation providers and around the world and closer to home. Recent innovations in the prevention and rehabilitation of brain injury include:

• The development of guidelines to improve how coaches, trainers and doctors identify and treat sports-related concussions. 

• Using phone support strategies to reduce psychological distress among brain injury patients as they return home.

• Exploring methods to determine when it is safe for athletes with concussion to return to sport.