BI Tools
Brain Injury Glossary
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- Balance
- The ability to use appropriate righting and equilibrium reactions to maintain an upright position. It is usually tested in sitting and standing positions.
- Balkan Frame
- A rectangular frame which may be placed over a hospital bed to position or increase mobility. Loops or a trapeze are often hung from the Balkan frame to assist a patient in bed activities and wheelchair transfers to and from the bed.
- Basic Human Need
- Biologic needs associated with maintaining life; food, clothing, shelter, reproduction and physical safety.
- Behavior
- The total collection of actions and reactions exhibited by a person.
- Behavioral Inflexibility
- Rigidity in the way an individual behaves or performs tasks.
- Bio-Feedback
- A process that provides sight or sound information about functions of the body, including blood pressure, muscle tension, etc. By trial and error, one can learn to consciously control these functions.
- Bilateral
- Pertaining to both right and left sides.
- Blandness
- Unperturbed; dull.
- Blocking
- The inability to remember; the involuntary interruption of a train of thought or speech.
- Brain Injury, Acquired
- Brain injury that is sustained from insult to the brain resulting in impairment of function, rather than congenital brain damage.
- Brain Injury, Closed
- Occurs when the head accelerates and then rapidly decelerates or collides with another object (for example the windshield of a car) and brain tissue is damaged, not by the presence of a foreign object within the brain, but by violent smashing, stretching, and twisting, of brain tissue. Closed brain injuries typically cause diffuse tissue damage that results in disabilities which are generalized and highly variable.
- Brain Injury, Mild
- A patient with a mild traumatic brain injury is a person who has had a traumatically-induced physiological disruption of brain function, as manifested by at least one of the following: 1) any period of loss of consciousness, 2) any loss of memory for events immediately before or after the accident, 3) any alteration in mental state at the time of the accident (e.g., feeling dazed, disoriented, or confused), 4) focal neurological deficit(s) which may or may not be transient; but where the severity of the injury does not exceed the following: a) loss of consciousness of approximately 30 minutes or less; b) after 30 minutes, an initial Glasgow Coma Scale score of 13-15; c) Post Traumatic Amnesia not greater than 24 hours.
- Brain Injury, Traumatc
- Damage to living brain tissue caused by an external, mechanical force. It is usually characterized by a period of altered consciousness (amnesia or coma) that can be very brief (minutes) or very long (mnths/indefinitely). The specific disabling condition(s) may be orthopedic, visual, aural, neurological, perceptive/cognitive, or mental/emotional in nature. The term does not include brain injuries that are caused by insufficient blood supply, toxic substances, malignancy, disease-producing organisms, congenital disorders, birth trauma or degenerative processes.
- Brain Plasticity
- The brain’s ability to employ surviving cells to compensate for damaged one’s, thereby taking over their function. This ability diminishes with age.
- Brain Scan
- An imaging technique in which a radioactive dye (radionuclide) is injected into the blood stream and then pictures of the brain are taken to detect tumors, hemorrhages, blood clots, abscesses or abnormal anatomy.
- Brainstem
- The lower extension of the brain that connects to the spinal cord. Neurological functions located in the brain stem include those necessary for survival (breathing, heart rate) and for arousal (being awake and alert).
- Brocha’s Area
- The region of the brain located in the frontal lobe of the hemisphere that is important for the production of speech.
