ABSTRACT
This chapter considers professional and lay discourse about brain injury, some of the challenges for health and treatment systems, before delineating some of the major dimensions affecting prognosis in brain injury, that is, psychological, social-family, inter-personal factors, and over-arching communication issues. It explores the conceptualizations of brain injury by locating family perspectives within bio-psychosocial formulations. The chapter outlines the core features of a relational approach to rehabilitation within the social-family context. A brain injury often comes between people and can be destructive to relationships yet by working with the shared reality among members of a network, rehabilitation allows for participation and also improvements to impairments. The principles of offering dignity and choice, through facilitating communication and increasing opportunities for social interaction have also been emphasized. From a neuroscience and rehabilitation professional perspective, the process of defining brain injury is fraught with difficulty and is extremely complex.
