Athletes who sustain concussions are usually quickly pulled from play and have teams of medical professionals overseeing their recoveries. Why aren’t victims of domestic violence with brain injuries getting the same care and attention?
Because the evidence is pointing to a massive, pernicious problem. Brain injury in women — and especially domestic violence victims — is disturbingly understudied, with the majority of concussion research focused on young male athletes.
And in Australia, a 2018 study found 40 per cent of family violence victims attending Victorian hospitals over a decade had sustained a brain injury — likely just the tip of the iceberg given how few victims seek medical care. For First Nations women, the statistics are even more startling: Aboriginal women experience head injury due to assault at 69 times the rate of non-Indigenous women and face unique barriers to accessing health services.
Domestic violence victims are particularly vulnerable, experts say, not just because of the sheer number of injuries they sustain — or the fact many also suffer hypoxic brain injury from strangulation — but because concussions affect patients’ ability to think clearly, limiting their ability to defend themselves or escape dangerous situations.
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