a1 Queens University, Canada.
The issue of long-term care and support of people with acquired brain injury has been a significant clinical and policy issue for some time; however. as evidence accrues about increases in incidence and survival from brain injury, the focus on this issue sharpens (Kolpan, 1990; McCluskey, 2005). The net effect of these increases (in the number of new brain injuries per year plus survival beyond the acute phase) is a sharp increase in prevalence, or the number of people living with the effects of brain injury in a given population. Add to that new information that has recently been published regarding long-term survival, and it becomes immediately apparent that factors are converging to produce an immanent increase in the economic and human costs of acquired brain injuries, at least in the developed world.