Why we must recognize TBI as a domestic violence issue

This content was originally authored by Galen Moller for the 10/24/19 edition of the Weekly Concussion Update newsletter.

In an essay for Undark, Nechama Moring shares her personal experiences with intimate partner violence and how it made her aware of the “invisible health epidemic” of untreated TBIs among survivors of domestic abuse. Moring highlights that concussions are often considered an exclusively sports-related problem; numerous studies on TBI focus on several thousand men in professional sports and ignore the estimated 29 million women in the U.S. who have experienced severe physical violence from an intimate partner. 

Since TBIs are not studied as a domestic violence issue, clinicians are often unprepared for disclosures of domestic violence and may attribute survivors’ concussion-like symptoms to mental illness or trauma from abuse. Meanwhile, many of the organizations aimed at helping survivors of domestic violence are not prepared to help with TBIs. Moring writes that “Many service providers and organizations focused on intimate partner violence lack awareness of concussions and their impacts. As a result, they may miss concussion symptoms in their clients, and they often fail to design programs in ways that accommodate the needs and limitations of people suffering from traumatic brain injuries.”

Moring also notes that domestic violence is extremely relevant to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) research, since most intimate partner violence is “episodic and escalating” and often goes untreated. Altogether, she argues that overlooking this large population of people with recurring head trauma is detrimental to science and to survivors of intimate partner violence.