It is estimated that greater than one particular million adults inside the UK are currently living with all the long-term consequences of brain injuries (Headway, 2014b). Rates of ABI have enhanced considerably in recent years, with estimated increases over ten years ranging from 33 per cent (Headway, 2014b) to 95 per cent (HSCIC, 2012). This improve is on account of several different factors including improved emergency response following injury (Powell, 2004); additional cyclists interacting with heavier targeted traffic flow; increased participation in harmful sports; and bigger numbers of pretty old folks within the population. Based on Good (2014), by far the most prevalent causes of ABI inside the UK are falls (22 ?43 per cent), assaults (30 ?50 per cent) and road website traffic accidents (circa 25 per cent), although the latter category accounts for any disproportionate variety of much more extreme brain injuries; other causes of ABI include things like sports injuries and domestic violence. Brain injury is more prevalent amongst guys than females and shows peaks at ages fifteen to thirty and over eighty (Good, 2014). International data show comparable patterns. One example is, inside the USA, the Centre for Disease Handle estimates that ABI impacts 1.7 million Americans each year; children aged from birth to 4, older teenagers and adults aged more than sixty-five possess the highest prices of ABI, with men much more susceptible than females across all age ranges (CDC, undated, Traumatic Brain Injury in the United states of america: Fact Sheet, offered on line at www.cdc.gov/ traumaticbraininjury/get_the_facts.html, accessed December 2014). There is also rising awareness and concern inside the USA about ABI amongst military personnel (see, e.g. Okie, 2005), with ABI prices reported to exceed onefifth of combatants (Okie, 2005; Terrio et al., 2009). Whilst this article will focus on current UK policy and practice, the concerns which it highlights are relevant to several national contexts.Acquired Brain Injury, Social Function and PersonalisationIf the causes of ABI are wide-ranging and unevenly distributed across age and gender, the impacts of ABI are similarly diverse. A number of people make a very good recovery from their brain injury, while other people are left with substantial ongoing issues. Furthermore, as Stattic custom synthesis Headway (2014b) cautions, the `initial diagnosis of severity of injury is just not a dependable indicator of long-term problems’. The possible impacts of ABI are well described both in (non-social perform) academic literature (e.g. Fleminger and Ponsford, 2005) and in private accounts (e.g. Crimmins, 2001; Perry, 1986). Even so, given the limited attention to ABI in social work literature, it’s worth 10508619.2011.638589 listing a number of the prevalent after-effects: physical troubles, cognitive issues, impairment of executive functioning, changes to a person’s behaviour and adjustments to emotional regulation and `personality’. For many people with ABI, there will probably be no physical indicators of impairment, but some may expertise a range of physical issues such as `loss of co-ordination, muscle rigidity, 
paralysis, epilepsy, difficulty in speaking, loss of sight, smell or taste, fatigue, and sexual problems’ (Headway, 2014b), with fatigue and headaches being particularly frequent following cognitive activity. ABI may also trigger cognitive issues like issues with journal.pone.0169185 memory and lowered speed of facts processing by the brain. These physical and cognitive aspects of ABI, while difficult for the individual concerned, are somewhat easy for social workers and other folks to conceptuali.