Forum on Traumatic Brain Injury
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Forum on Traumatic Brain Injury convenes leaders across TBI prevention, care, research, and lived experience to advance recommendations from the report Traumatic Brain Injury: A Roadmap for Accelerating Progress (NASEM 2022), foster progress in understanding TBI and enhancing prevention, diagnosis, care and recovery, and identify opportunities for collective action. The Forum addresses topics relating to critical research gaps, the complexity of the systems involved in TBI treatment and rehabilitation, the challenge of coordination across the lifecycle, and other needs and challenges facing those involved in this field.
In progress
"Fostering understanding and action to advance traumatic brain injury (TBI) prevention, research, care, and recovery across the lifespan."
News and Updates
Action Collaborative on TBI Care
Update
Members of the Forum’s Action Collaborative on TBI Care have published guidance to support outpatient management of TBI in adults able to care for themselves at hospital discharge or who did not require acute hospitalization (available from Annals of Family Medicine and Journal of Neurotrauma). Developed for primary care and frontline clinicians, these resources identify priority clinical actions spanning diagnosis, risk assessment, patient education, symptom management, return-to-activity, and referral to specialty care, providing a structured approach to management in the first months after injury.
Approaches to Address Unmet Research Needs in Traumatic Brain Injury Among Older Adults
Update
This interactive webpage translates findings from the Forum’s recent workshop into a dynamic, visual format. Sessions highlighted issues from better understanding comorbidities and recovery trajectories to gaps in data and representation, while pointing to opportunities to strengthen evidence and care for TBI in the older adult population.
Approaches to Address Unmet Research Needs in Traumatic Brain Injury Among Older Adults: Proceedings of a Workshop
Proceedings
·2025
Although traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of disability for adults over the age of 65, knowledge gaps and clinically relevant differences in TBI injury, recovery, and outcomes in this age group limit evidence-based care guidance. The National Academies organized a public workshop in Oct...
View details
Publications
Infographic
Stages of a Care Journey after TBI
Infographic