Traumatic brain injury, behavioral disorder, and group treatment.

The Ame''ican Journal 0/ Occupational Therapr H ead injuries, particularly as a result of motor vehicle aCCidents, have become a national epidemic. The National Head Injury Foundation (1986) estimated that 100,000 people die annually from head injuries and more than 700,000 have injuries severe enough to require hospitalization, From a medical, SOCial, and economic standpoint, head injuries place a heavy burden on communities (Askenasy & Rahmani, 1988), and persons with severe head injuries often require more services than can be provided in traditional rehabilitation programs, The client with head injury who emerges from a coma characteristically demonstrates agitated behavior (Berro!, 1988), This behavior can continue and interferes with the client's rehabilitation potential (Klauber & WardMcKinlay, 1986), When the client's behavior becomes unmanageable, he or she requires treatment that manages both mental health and physical disability progress (Kinsella, Moran, Ford, & Ponsford, 1988), This paper describes the occupational therapy program of a woman with brain injury who exhibited not only cognitive problems but also severe behavioral problems.