[jpowell]

Hi, My son is 20 years old and was in a car accident July 23rd, 2007. He fell asleep at the wheel and was ejected from his truck. We live in a rural area so he was flown to the nearest hospital that was equipped to treat TBI.

He spent 2 1/2 weeks in the critical care unit, after the 3rd day his brain began to swell to the point it could no longer be controlled with medication so he had dual bone flap surgery where a portion of his skull was removed from both sides of his head to relieve the swelling. We felt pretty lucky at first because we knew he could move all his limbs and he had no broken bones. There were concerns he had a bit of pneumonia because they figured he asperated after the accident while he was laying there waiting for someone to find him. About a week after he was admitted he got rid of the ventilator and had a tracheoscopy and a feeding tube.

He was then moved to the Ortho/Neuro floor of the hospital where he was awake and responding to commands, ie squeezing our hands, nodding his head and communicating with his eyes and hands. As things progressed his trach was removed and he was able to talk. He was then move down to in-patient rehab where it was required that he do 3 hours/day of therapy, if he was not able to do that then he would have to go to a skilled nursing facility. Thankfully he was able to handle the 3 hours and progressed quickly his feeding tube was removed, he was starting to walk with assistance, and he was talking. He spent 2 1/2 weeks in inpatient therapy and was released to go home and participate in out patient therapy.

Living in a rural area we do not have Speech and Occupational therapy in our area so we travel 1 1/2 hours each week for therapy.

My frustration is this....He is doing fantastic...He can do all the ADL activities, he can talk, walk, and carry on a conversation with appropriate responses. He just has no short term memory everything else seems to be working normally, physically he is slower than before but is improving daily. His speech therapist is having him do word recall, matching, etc, the activities seem so elementary and he is able to do them with ease he is even helping his girlfriend with her algebra. I am wondering what others are doing for short term memory, what therapies worked for them, do these elementary activities really work?

Julie