Traumatic Brain Injury: A Case Study

Music therapy is used in a wide variety of populations such as PTSD, children with autism and other developmental problems, addiction, geriatrics, emotionally disturbed teens, and in the medical setting (medical music therapy). One population that doesn’t receive as much attention as others is traumatic brain injury (TBI). Traumatic brain injury is defined by the DSM-V as “an impact to the head or other mechanisms of rapid movement or displacement of the brain within the skull (DSM-V 2013).” If an injury is severe enough, a mild or major neurocognitive disorder due to the TBI can develop. The diagnostic criteria for a mild or major neurocognitive disorder due to traumatic brain injury is:
A. The criteria are met for mild or major neurocognitive disorder.
B. There is evidence of a traumatic brain injury—that is, an impact to
Loss of consciousness.
2. Posttraumatic amnesia.
3. Disorientation and confusion.
4. Neurological signs (e.g., neuroimaging demonstrating injury; a new onset of seizures; a marked worsening of preexisting seizure disorder; visual field cuts; anosmia, hemiparesis).
C. The neurocognitive disorder presents immediately after the occurrence of the traumatic brain injury or immediately after recovery of consciousness and persists past the acute post-injury period (DSM-V 2013).
Approximately 500,000 to 700,000 people sustain a traumatic brain injury each year (Gervin 1991, pg. 87). Of that number, the National Head Injury Foundation estimates that between 50,000 and 70,000 sustain injuries severe enough to keep them from returning to their premorbid levels of function (Gervin 1991, pg. 87). According to the Center for Disease Control and Injury Prevention, the leading causes of TBI are: falls, being struck by