This toolkit is meant for educational purposes only. The information within it should not be used to diagnose or treat brain injury in your clients.

Mental Health and Brain Injury

Understanding the link between mental health and brain injury

The relationship between brain injury and mental health is complex. Though we know people who sustain a brain injury are at an increased risk of experiencing mental health concerns, it can be difficult to disentangle whether the symptoms a survivor is experiencing are a consequence of a pre-existing mental health concern, possibly made worse by the brain injury, or a consequence of the brain injury alone.^1-7 Brain injuries can exacerbate existing mental health concerns or result in new mental health concerns. The symptoms of brain injuries can overlap with symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can make it very difficult to identify the underlying cause.^8-11

The mental health impacts of brain injury are influenced by many things, including pre-injury status, co-occurring conditions, injury-related factors, and pre- and post-injury environmental factors. Being a woman is also a potential risk factor. It’s been found that women experience increased symptoms of headaches and dizziness and lower confidence and initiative than men following a brain injury.¹² Women with traumatic brain injury also report more depression, stress, and anxiety symptoms.¹³

Find your local branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA):

cmha.ca/find-your-cmha

Making the connection

Understanding the connections between and overlap of brain injury and mental health is important both for survivors and frontline workers, particularly those who work in mental health. The co-occurrence of traumatic brain injury with depression and PTSD can affect the recovery process after a brain injury. That, together with the knowledge that women generally are worse off after their brain injury than men, highlights the importance of addressing the specific needs of women survivors of IPV who have sustained a traumatic brain injury, and whose mental health and history of injury likely places them at an even greater risk for poor health than women in the general population.¹³

“Because I never considered I had a brain injury, I just figured it was the—you know, just the stress I was dealing with all the time. I put it down to that more than anything. And I think most women do that who are in those situations.”

– Survivor

Differences between TBI, PTSD, and depression

These diagrams show how difficult it can be to see the differences between TBI, PTSD, and Depression.^8-11 As the overlap between these conditions is hard to define, and different sources show different things, it can become even more complicated. However, these diagrams can provide you with some visual information on the complexity and some guidance on what to look for in each situation. “mTBI” below refers to ‘mild’ Traumatic Brain Injury. For more information about classifications of TBI, please see the Identifying TBI tab in the Traumatic Brain Injury Section.

Comorbid mTBI/PTSD

“I certainly think that those highs and lows of mental health that can be confounded by brain injury… really do impact women's ability to function as a self-sufficient person who's making her own way in the world. If you literally do not know if you're going to be able to get out of bed the next morning to get somewhere… part of the work with brain injury is helping women to… start to plan a little bit and become more aware of when they're at their breaking point and that they need to take some time and rest.”

– Front-Line Worker

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