Sometimes I'm surprised when the caregiver of an Alzheimer's patient tells me that only another Alzheimer's caregiver can understand how difficult it is to care for his or her family member. A social worker once asked, doubtfully, if I would be comfortable speaking to the problems of stroke patient caregivers, since my husband was brain-injured rather than suffering from the impacts of a stroke. These other disabling diseases or disorders are forms of brain injuries aren't they? Have you ever known a brain injury that's the same as any other? They're all different and yet all the same.

Any kind of brain injury or disease in the family creates emotional, physical, and financial challenges.

Thousands of families are destroyed by the struggle of dealing with a family member's brain injury or illness. Without support they will continue to fall apart as a result of anger, resentment, financial problems and role changes The emotional losses, the role changes, the financial struggle-those things remain the same for families of brain injury survivors, for Alzheimer's patients, and for stroke survivors. But many of these families might be able to weather the storm and remain caring and loving families rather than broken ones if they had more support. What if we stopped labeling and separating and just got together to provide services for all families that are dealing with brain injury, regardless of what caused it? Think about it.

What if brain injury families had access to knowledgeable volunteer counselors as part of a family member's treatment for as long as they needed it?

What if there was easy access to emergency travel funds for families who needed to travel back and forth to a rehabilitation facility?

What if we funded hundreds of respite care facilities so that families could have some time off from care giving?

What if there were kid camps so our children could have a respite from the worry and stress of brain injury in thir families?

What if we lobbied for more incentives for businesses that hired recovering brain injury survivors and provided both counseling and paying work—or companies that helped fund rehab ranches and farms for brain injury survivors similar to those that offer support and behavior modification services for troubled youth?

What if we demanded courses in medical schools that emphasized to therapists, nurses and doctors that treating whole families leads to the best outcome for a brain injury patient?

I think all these things might be possible if we worked together for all families struggling with brain injury. But it will never happen unless we begin to realize that as families of people who have brain injuries or brain disease, we're all in this together and we must start working TOGETHER  to save our families.

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