I agree with everything Brody said.
I'm terribly sorry to hear about the accident and for the loss to you and your family.
From my experience in giving neurological tests to evaluate damage and progress of brain injured patients, unfortunately
no one can give you a clear, reasonable answer
at this time as to her prognosis.
I suggest you read up as much as you can on the rehabilitation of brain injured patients.
Very typically, the loss of functioning is most severe immediately after injury with some slow, gradual recovery of some functions over the following year.
Depending on the type of injury -- whether to a specific, localized spot or generalized trauma -- the function lost (speech, hearing, locomotion, vision, short or long term memory, executive control, emotional control, etc.) may be either more specific or more generalized.
Accurately predicting how much of what will be lost is
absolutely imposssible at this time. Rehabilitation and some recovery usually takes place over a year or more. After six months, some educated guesses can be made that possibly might have 30-60% accuracy. The more rapid and complete the recovery is, usually the better the accuracy.
However, in the process of healing the injury, the scar tissue that forms inside the brain
sometimes creates further brain damage and loss of function that, until that time, had been relatively unimpaired.
Again, I urge you to read up as much as you can about brain traumas and the variable outcomes in rehabilitating them.
Garth said
DEMAND answers from them. You have a right to know what's going on as her next of kin. I've had that same problem with some hospital doctors in the past. Some of them think you're too dumb to understand so they don't bother. I would (& have done) demand answers in plain english re her prognosis, future treatment & ability to live independently when she's released from hospital. If they wont cooperate with you, ask to see a patient advocate if there's one available & get more info through them.
While I agree with Garth on a number of things, and
do agree that some doctors are not good about discussing outcomes with relatives about recovery prognosis of such things as broken legs, appendectomies, etc., not so with this -- in the case of brain trauma, no one can accurately tell you at this point.
I suggest you google such phrases as
brain trauma recovery prognosis
brain injury recovery
brain injury rehabilitation
and any others you think of, and read what those searches reveal.
Again, I'm terribly sorry your mother, you and your family has to go through this ordeal and wish you all a satisfying outcome.
