The Mango Princess Character Analysis

“Where is the Mango Princess”, written by Cathy Crimmins, is the journey through her husband’s, Alan’s, brain injury. Alan was hit on the head by a speedboat, and from which, he suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Eventually, awakening from his coma, his recovery took his wife and child on a roller coaster ride of emotions. This story explores the heartbreaking and frustrating experiences of a caregiver to a patient recovering from TBI. Crimmins uses slight humor and honesty to welcome the reader into the chaotic life of caring for her husband. This book has darker themes like most, so it is important that the atmosphere is kept light and airy through humorous attempts. It is the most admirable trait that Crimmins has, in my opinion. I’m not fond of reading, so the humor kept me occupied; I really enjoyed the humorous aspects of this story. This book also focuses on educating the beholder about TBI and the effects of severe brain damage. Though Alan had recovered physically from the accident, his mental recovery was still an on-going process in which rehab was required. She went on to describe the accident as: “One day, you and your family are hiking across a long, solid plain, when out of the sky comes a blazing meteor that just happens to hit one family member on the head. The meteor creates a huge rift in the landscape, dragging the unlucky one down to the bottom of the crevice it has made. You spend the next year on a rescue mission, helping him climb to the top,

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is one of the leading causes of death and disability among children, adolescents, and adults (Trudel, Scherer, & Elias, 2009, p.41). There are close to 1.4 million individuals a year who are treated with a TBI. Out of this 50,000 of them die. That is 1 out of every 28 people treated for a TBI dies every year. Another 6 out of 28 people are admitted into medical facilities for longer-term care. These number do not take in account the number of people each year with TBI’s who go untreated. However, TBI’s had received little to no support publicly or policy wise until recent years. This increase in attention was due to the increase in TBI’s among military personnel returning home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Glasgow coma scale is the scoring system that monitors and assesses the level of consciousness of a patient that has had a traumatic injury e.g. brain injury, car accident or sports injury (Braine & cook, 2016). The Glasgow coma scale is a score between 3-15 with 3 being the worst and 15 being the best. This scale is composed of 3 sections which are the best eye response this assessment is important to assess the arousal of the patient which reflexes the integrity of reticular activating system of the brain which assesses by 1. No eye opening 2. Opens to pain 3. Opens to voice 4. Opens spontaneously, the best verbal response this assessment reflects the integrity of higher cognitive and interpretive centres of the brain. The verbal response depends on the language centre in the temporal lobe and in the frontal lobe which assess 1. No verbal response 2. Incomprehensive sounds 3. Inappropriate words 4. Confused 5. Orientated and best motor response this assessment check the function ability of the cerebral cortex, the patient has to understand the commands and perform the movement accordingly, they assess the upper extremities by simple orders because they are more reliable than the lower extremities this is assessed by 1. No motor response 2. Extension to pain 3. Flexion to pain 4. Withdrawals from pain 5. Localising pain 6. Obeys commands, these are the three sections that nurses needs to access (Elliot, Aitken & Chaboyer,

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a type of injury that is a critical public health and socio-economic problem. TBI is a leading cause of death and disability in both children and adults [5]. The Centers for Disease Control and

Medical and technological advances have led to greater survival rates in individuals suffering from various illness and injury throughout history. This includes individuals who suffer traumatic and nontraumatic brain injuries. Approximately 1.5 million people in the United States sustain a brain injury each year with the survival rate of over 90 percent making brain injury the leading cause for disability in the United States. (Mysiw, Bogner, Corrigan, Fugate, Clinchot, & Kadyan 2006). Cognitive, physical, sensory and behavioral changes are widely noted in individuals in the months and years following a brain injury. However, the psychosocial, psychological and emotional effects of these injuries are less discussed and therefore these aspects can be overlooked when anticipating a course of treatment. Individuals who sustain acquired brain injuries experience significant, lasting impairment in the psychosocial, psychological and emotional aspects of their lives and better understanding of these issues can lead to better treatment and coping skills for these individuals.

Traumatic brain injury is any damage caused to the brain. Individuals with TBI may show aphasia-like symptoms, yet the characteristics of TBI include mostly cognitive processes deficits. Those characteristics include disrupt orientation, attention, memory, visual processing, and executive functions problems. Penitents with TBI experience a blackout that can last anywhere between a few minutes up to months and usually wake up confused and disoriented. They do not have any recollection of the events that occurred. In addition to the common characteristics mentioned earlier, TBI patients exhibit communication deficits that relate to poor cognitive functioning such as problems with word finding, grammatical, spelling, reading, and writing. The cause of TBI is very straightforward, unlike SLI or ASD. Any injury to the head, for example motor vehicle accidents, falls, blast trauma, and more, can cause a TBI. These in turn can cause damage to multiple areas of the brain and impair motor, speech, language, and cognitive functions as discussed. It is important to note that unlike ASD that usually

The Silent Epidemic It only takes a split second for a jolt to the skull to cause extensive damage and serious impairment of the voluminous and vital neurological functions. Who would be your power of attorney? How would you pay for the medical bills? Questions the majority of people never even think of- you never think it could be you. Effects may be long term or short term, depending on the gravity of the incident. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a serious public health problem in the United States. Based on recent studies, on average, 1.7 million people endure a traumatic brain injury each year.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that develops in people that suffer from multiple traumatic brain injuries, multiple concussions, or multiple sub-concussive injuries. It can take several years or decades to before any symptoms may arise. Chronic Traumatic encephalopathy was introduced by Martland in 1928. During that

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has affected many people, but has hardly raised awareness; in fact according to Marcia Clemmitt “About 1.7 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) every year…Yet, while they affect so many people, TBI has received little medical-research funding until brain injuries from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan … began to mount in recent years.”(Clemmitt) For such a long time many people were unaware of what traumatic brain injury even meant; Up until a numerous groups of veterans that came back home, from Afghanistan were found to suffer from traumatic brain injuries. Due to the discovery, the people that already suffered from traumatic brain injury

Traumatic brain injury occurs when a person is hit in the head with a blunt force. This significant force to the head can happen playing recreational sports, on the playground, being in a car or motorcycle accident, falling down at home and your head impacting something, a blast or explosion. Traumatic brain injuries are also the leading cause of fatality rate and disability, especially in children, young adults and elderly. TBI is a devastating condition that affects millions of people nationwide, because it can affect the nervous system permanently, it also messes with the neurological, musculoskeletal, cognitive and much more. TBI force a family to deal with not just the physical disability, with the behavioral and emotional roller

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is becoming more prevalent every year, “with an incidence of about 100 to 300 per 100 000” (Konrad et al 2010). Mild traumatic brain injury or concussion can be the result of any minor trauma to the head from accident, sports related injury, blast injury, or fall. “Possible acute symptoms of mTBI comprise short-time unconsciousness, headache, dizziness, irritability, anxiety and impaired neuropsychological functions such as reduced attention, concentration or memory problems” (Evans, 1992; Hall et al. 2005 as cited by Konrad et al 2010). Some people who sustain a mTBI return to base level of function within hours and some take up to two months, there are even those that years later have not fully

A tramatic brain injury or TBI is a injury that occurs when a unexpected impact causes the brain to hit the inside of the skull in a accelerated motion. There are different types of tramatic brain injuries mild, moderate and severe. Mild tramatic brain injury or mTBI is the most common brain injury. It is said that about 1.7 billion TBI’s occur in the united states each year. And of that number roughly 80% of those are mild TBI’s. (hyatt) TBI may be associated with a diminished or altered state of consciousness at the time of injury and often leads to cognitive, neurologic, or psychological impairment. It is classified by level of severity as mild, moderate, or severe. Glasgow Coma Scale score in the first 24 hours after injury, and whether

Cisneros employs a few different methods of characterization throughout The House on Mango Street. One method, that is not as prevalent as the others is the use of food to reveal character traits. For example, the character Ruthie’s childish character is shown through her love of candy. Also, Esperanza’s Papa ate “hamandeggs” for three months straight. This shows he was an immigrant who knew little English. Another mention of food came up with Esperanza. On the special occasion where she was able to eat lunch at school, she had a rice sandwich. This was because they did not have lunch meat, further showing their status as a poor immigrant family. Another method Cisneros utilized to reveal characters was the description of physical appearances.

In the article twenty- three participants, seven women sixteen men, who sustained a moderate to severe Traumatic Brain Injury and 23 neurologically normal controls, thirteen women and ten men, partook in this study. Participants with TBI were identified from admissions to a rehabilitation program located in the Pacific Northwest region. Control participants were recruited through advisements in the community and received monetary compensation for their participation and the participants with TBI received feedback regarding cognitive functioning in return for their involvement in the study. The individuals who had TBI were considered to have suffered a severe brain injury if depth of coma, documented in an emergency room or at the scene of the accident, was 8 or less on the Glasgow Coma Scale. The duration of post-traumatic amnesia was three days or longer for all TBI participants. Emergence from post-traumatic amnesia was assess by repeated administration of the Galveston Orientation and Amnesia Test or by asking the individual with TBI to recall their memories until the evaluator was convinced that the participant displayed normal continuous memory. (Livengood, Anderson, & Schmitter-Edgecombe, 2010) Time since injury ranged between 2–10 months all participants with TBI were within the first year of recovering from a moderate to-severe TBI. The majority of individuals with TBI sustained their head injury as a result of a motor vehicle accident, while the remaining injuries

Traumatic Brain Injury: Living with TBI and the effects on individual and caregivers Traumatic Brain Injury is otherwise known as TBI. “Traumatic brain injury, a form of acquired brain injury, occurs when sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. TBI can result when the head suddenly and violently hits an object, or when an object pierces the skull and enters brain tissue” (NINDS, 2010). There are two main types of TBI, closed head injuries such as head hitting a windshield and penetrating head injuries such as a gunshot wound. As reported by the Global Neuroscience Initiative Foundation,” The severity of traumatic brain injuries is often assessed using the Glasgow Coma Scale, with scores ranging from 3 to 15. The higher the score,