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When Behaviour Changes After Brain Injury
Behaviour Support for the changes families experience after a brain injury starts with the person. After an acquired brain injury, changes in how a person acts come from the parts of the brain that handle impulse, emotion, and energy. We help build a supportive environment that focuses around what has changed, and around the family learning how to assist and care.
After suffering brain injury, it is important to remember that the person you love is still here, even if they feel different. Their temper may turn over small things, or they go quiet for hours. Families often describe grieving someone who is still in the room, and nobody has explained why it’s happening.
These changes come directly from the injury. The ability to complete routine activities often stop due to the damage done to the brain. We help support the build of new strategies that are personalised to the goals of person and the family.
Families and carers
For referrers and Support Coordinators
Our Behaviour Support team works with people whose behaviour has changed after a brain injury, and with the families adjusting alongside them. We deliver support in clinic, at home, in supported accommodation and in the community across NSW and Tasmania, starting with the injury and what it has changed, then the behaviour.
How do I fund Behaviour Support?
Behaviour Support at Optimum Health Solutions is usually funded through the NDIS.
NDIS participants fund it from Capacity Building. Newer PACE plans list it as Behaviour Support, and older plans list it as Improved Relationships.
Private sessions are available too, with no referral needed, and you will get a clear picture of the costs before you book.
If it is not in your plan yet, your support coordinator can ask for it at the next plan review.
If you are not sure which funding applies to you, call us on 1800 678 647 or email hello@opt.net.au. We will sort it out before your first appointment.
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Understanding Behaviour Changes After Brain Injury
01
What the Injury Changed
The front of the brain runs the things most of us never think about: pausing before we speak, holding back frustration, reading a room, filtering what’s fine to say out loud. When an injury affects this area, those brakes don’t work the way they did. A person may act on a thought before it’s finished, say something sharp without meaning to, or swing between feelings with no clear trigger. This is a recognised effect of the injury called emotional lability, and it’s one of the changes families find hardest to live with. It comes from the injury itself.
02
A World That Can Feel Overwhelming
After a brain injury, ordinary surroundings can become a lot to process. Thinking slows down. A noisy room turns unbearable. A simple instruction is hard to hold on to. When the world stops making sense in the moment, distress and agitation often follow, not because the person is being difficult, but because they’re overwhelmed and have run out of ways to say so.
03
Fatigue That Is Not Ordinary Tiredness
Cognitive fatigue after a brain injury is a different thing from being tired. The brain is working harder to do what used to be automatic, so it uses up energy faster. As fatigue builds, the capacity to hold steady drops away, and behaviour that was settled in the morning can come apart by mid-afternoon. Pain, headaches, and broken sleep all add to it. A plan that ignores fatigue won’t hold.
04
Functional Behaviour Assessment
Before any plan, we work out how the injury and the behaviour are connected. We learn the person’s injury and how they think now, and we watch across real settings: home, rehabilitation, community, supported accommodation. We talk to the people closest to them. The assessment maps what sits behind each behaviour of concern across several sessions, so the plan addresses the cause rather than the surface.
05
A Plan Built Around the Brain
The plan fits the brain as it is now. It usually brings together a few things: simpler surroundings with less to process, predictable routines that ask little of a tired memory, rest built into the day before fatigue tips things over, communication supports worked out with a Speech Pathologist where speech has been affected, and calm, consistent responses for the hard moments. Where restrictive practices are in place now, the plan sets out how to step them back, safely and gradually.
06
Family Understanding, and One Team Under One Roof
For brain injury, helping the family understand what has changed is often the most important part of the plan. When the people closest to the person can see the behaviour as part of the injury, their responses steady, and a steadier response calms the moment instead of stoking it. We work through this with you.
Brain injury touches movement, communication, daily living, mood, and energy all at once.
Who We Work With
We work with people living with acquired brain injury across its causes and stages, and with the families and carers beside them.
Stroke survivors noticing changes in temper or mood, or finding it hard to get back into daily routines. People recovering from a traumatic brain injury after a crash, a fall, an assault, or sport, where impulse and strong reactions are creating risk. People living with a hypoxic brain injury after cardiac arrest or another loss of oxygen. Families and carers trying to understand what has changed and how to respond.
We also work with people well past the acute stage, when hospital rehabilitation has finished but the behaviour changes are still there. You don’t need to be in crisis before you get in touch.
At Optimum Health Solutions, your behaviour support practitioner works in the same clinics as our Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Pathology, Exercise Physiology, and Dietetics teams. A behaviour at mealtimes might turn out to be a swallowing issue for the Speech Pathologist. Withdrawal from a task might ease when the Occupational Therapist breaks it into smaller steps. Talk to your practitioner about cross-referrals.
The plan:
Your behaviour support plan starts from the injury and what it has changed, then sets out the strategies that reduce the behaviour, the responses for hard moments, and who does what across home and community.We go through it with family and support workers, and we review it as recovery and daily life change.
Brain Injury Behaviour Support Through the NDIS
Acquired brain injury is a recognised disability under the NDIS. Where it’s funded, Behaviour Support sits in the Capacity Building part of the plan. In newer NDIS (PACE) plans this is usually a dedicated Behaviour Support budget; older plans fund it under Improved Relationships. We’re a registered NDIS provider. If your plan doesn’t yet include behaviour support funding, your support coordinator or planner can request it at your next plan review, and we can help you describe what it’s for.
Your practitioner writes goals tied to real life, tracks progress against them, and prepares the reports your plan review needs. We work with self-managed, plan-managed, and NDIA-managed participants, and we handle the service agreements and invoicing so you can focus on the support itself.
NDIS
Referrals
14 clinics across NSW & Tasmania
Email us
hello@opt.net.au
Speak to us
1800 678 647
Get in Touch.
Where we offer Behaviour Support
Common Questions About Behaviour Support and Brain Injury
What is Behaviour Support for brain injury?
Why does behaviour change after a brain injury?
Does the NDIS fund behaviour support for brain injury?
Can behaviour improve years after a brain injury?
How can Behaviour Support help when the family is struggling too?
Can Behaviour Support work alongside Physiotherapy and other therapies?
We feel like we are living with a different person. Is it worth getting in touch?
Reviewed by Rachel Hardcastle
OPTIMUM HEALTH SOLUTIONS
Rachel has worked in Behaviour Support for over 16 years, where her experience has included complex and forensic work. Rachel’s approach is entirely person-centred, meaning her practice starts and ends with the person, building support around them. Rachel works clinically and leads the development of the Behaviour Support team at Optimum Health Solutions, supporting practitioners to grow and do their best work with the people they see.
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