Review on Family Caregiving and Rehabilitation of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Worldwide, trauma, with traumatic brain injury (TBI) as the major contributor, is the leading cause of death for the under 45y old. In TBI, caregiving and rehabilitation are inseparable, yet no review has acknowledged this linkage. A literature search, especially using internet, for relevant articles, 1993-2010, was conducted using the following databases (EBSCOhost (R), Ovid (R), ProQuest (R), Sage (R), Science Direct (R), SpringerLink (R), Wiley-Blackwell (R), JSTOR (R)) with the keywords: caregiver, traumatic brain injury, and rehabilitation. The role-functions, overwhelming demands and needs, and impacts and outcomes of TBI family-caregiving-rehabilitating on family-social-dynamics are focused in this review. Caregiving problems in developing countries are highlighted. Some aspects of interventions and methodologies, especially those related to researches, are reviewed.