Brain Injury Awareness Week, Recognising the Good Days and the Bad

At Fletchers Solicitors, we’re proud to support Brain Injury Awareness Week. This is a time to reflect, educate, and advocate for those affected by traumatic brain injuries (TBI). This year’s campaign from our charity partner Headway, “A Life of Good Days and Bad Days”, focuses on the unpredictable reality of life after a brain injury. It’s a message that resonates deeply with our team and the clients we support every day.

One of the inspiring client stories we’re proud to share is that of Janice, who was in a motorbike accident and suffered a serious brain injury. She was thrown from her bike, sustaining life-changing injuries that affected her memory, vision, and ability to walk.

Following the accident, our specialist brain injury solicitors supported Janice through her legal journey and secured a substantial settlement. This compensation has helped improve her quality of life and opened up new opportunities for her recovery and independence.

Today, Janice finds joy and purpose in caring for her beloved animals and has even taken up ballroom dancing, which has played a key role in her rehabilitation, both physically and emotionally.

For Brain Injury Awareness Week, we’re sharing some additional insights from her journey, along with expert commentary from Claire Hutchinson, a Partner and specialist brain injury solicitor at Fletchers.

A Q&A with Claire Hutchinson, Partner at Serious Injury Law; a dedicated practice for serious and catastrophic personal injury. 

1. On a good day, Janice describes being motivated to get ‘back to normal’ by looking after her chickens. How important is maintaining a routine for someone recovering from a brain injury?

Claire:
“Routine will help someone with a brain injury have some form of structure to their lives. It will help them to feel a sense of normality when everything has been turned upside down. The routine will help reduce the mental load on the individual, helping to reduce fatigue and allowing a better day-to-day experience.”

2. Janice also describes a love of animals, and in the video we see her looking after her birds and fish. Janice mentions that a big part of her recovery was training her pet cockatiel, and it really appears that this gave Janice a sense of purpose. How can having a purpose help a TBI-injured person during their recovery?

Claire:
“Life after brain injury can be difficult. The change can be hard to adapt to, both physically and mentally. Individuals can often be left feeling helpless, with an inability to conduct daily life as they used to. Having a sense of purpose can help someone to start moving forward with life after brain injury, giving them a renewed focus, with which comes positive reinforcement. It can help improve their feelings of self-worth to help process and move forward from what has happened.”

3. Janice credits the dancing community for supporting her recovery. She believes that learning to tango really helped improve her balance and coordination. How does physical exercise and rehabilitation help a person with TBI?

Claire:
“Rehabilitation is key to the recovery of someone with a brain injury. Often, the consequences of brain injury can be physical impairments such as poor balance, coordination or weakness in limbs. Physical rehabilitation can aid that individual in improving their physical stability so that they can start to engage with life in a safer and more meaningful manner.

“Often the TBI can impact cognitive function, even something so simple as remembering a list of chores at the start of the day can seem impossible. Rehabilitation can help support the individual with strategies to assist with their memory, their processing of information, and can help promote a level of independence that would perhaps not be possible without the rehabilitation input.”

4. Janice explains how her bad days would be filled with fatigue, numbness, fearfulness, seeing double, feeling wobbly and struggling to walk. What other things might a person with a TBI experience on a bad day?

Claire:
“I think honestly the list could be endless when considering how someone might experience a brain injury. No two individuals will be impacted in the same way. It could be reduced memory function, increased anxiety, fatigue, or their speech could be impacted, particularly word processing. All of these are effects that can impact their daily functioning, which in turn can impact their overall mood.”

5. Janice mentions choosing Fletchers because she really felt a sense of trust upon first meeting her solicitor. How important is it for a person with a TBI to choose the right solicitor?

Claire:
“The right solicitor is key. Not only do you want someone with experience of dealing with brain injury cases so that they know the right experts to use, the nuances of brain injury and how that may be evidenced, the future impact of brain injury and how that may be evidenced to support the best compensatory outcomes for the individual’s lifelong needs, but also the right solicitor with the right experience will know the importance of rehabilitation and help to get the funding for the right support team/network to ensure the best outcomes are achieved, whilst working in collaboration with the NHS and community clinicians.

“The right solicitor is key on a personal level also. Whilst no one wants the claim process to last any longer than it needs to, often that solicitor could be a part of the individual’s life for quite some time, and so it is important that they work together well and that the solicitor is the right fit and the individual feels appropriately supported.”

Supporting Headway and the People Behind the Claims

We’re proud to be a long-standing partner of Headway, an organisation that provides life-changing support to individuals and families affected by brain injury. Their campaigns do more than raise awareness, they give a voice to those navigating life-altering injuries.

At Fletchers Solicitors, our specialist Brain Injury Lawyers work every day with individuals like Janice, securing not just compensation but long-term rehabilitation support, community care and guidance through a complex recovery journey. Our Serious Injury Team has decades of experience helping clients live life with dignity and support following catastrophic injuries. You can also meet the team and see the people behind the support we offer.

If you or someone you love has suffered a traumatic brain injury, we’re here to help.

Contact our expert team today for compassionate, expert legal advice and support.