ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the role that the family should play in the rehabilitation process of a person with brain injury. Authors and family groups propose different roles for families in the process of brain injury recovery.(1-5)
Frank(6) suggests that effective rehabilitation may depend on the ability of professionals to understand the dynamics of the family system. Different approaches range from affirming that the family should participate in the rehabilitation process, even being physically present during therapy sessions, to thinking that the family should have a limited role in the process. Not all families are the same, nor are all the environments and contexts in which the different types of families move. In countries with limited resources, families sometimes play an important role in rehabilitation because they are the ones who assist the patient due to the lack of caretakers and specialized personnel in hospitals or because of a lack of finances. Thus, what appears to function in one place may not function in another since the demands of the families depend very much on the socio-economic and cultural status and the level of progress in the country where they live. Furthermore, it is not the family but rather the rehabilitation center where the patient receives treatment that usually has the legal responsibility for the rehabilitation treatment. Therefore, this chapter analyses the role that a given family should play in its environment, rather than the type of family intervention in a highly specialized and complex treatment center, where multidisciplinary methods are used. The question that we are asking is whether the family should be the therapist or the advocate, or somewhere in-between.
