On our cover this month, Fred Kumpel helps his teenage daughter, Angeleigh, exercise the left side of her body, now the weaker side, after she was struck by a car walking home from a friend's house one night. As a result of the accident, Angeleigh fractured her pelvis, broke her leg, and suffered traumatic brain injury-most seriously affected were the frontal and right temporal areas of her brain, those controlling her emotions and the left side of her body. Returning home after more than a month in the hospital, the teen was now in the constant care of her parents; their daily lives a regimen of feeding, exercises, and medical appointments.
Angeleigh's story illustrates the way traumatic brain injury affects not only the patients, but also their caretakers, family, and friends. During the long months of her recovery, Angeleigh's daily care, feeding, and exercise were supervised by her parents, who made sure their daughter kept up her physical therapy and had a consistent, repetitive schedule to help organize her brain. Relatives and friends stepped in to run errands, take shifts in her care, and keep her company.
Although it's still early in Angeleigh's recovery, her father commented on the family's role in a recent interview: "You have to stay vigilant. On one level, it's a job. On another level, you see the improvement; you know this road is going to have an end. She's going to help us get there." For more on the toll traumatic brain injury can take on families, see this month's CE feature, "Mild Traumatic Brain Injury."-Michael Fergenson, senior editorial coordinator