Beware the Plateau!

My TBI recovery went on well for a long time, but eventually I felt like it was reaching a plateau. Suddenly, I started noticing improvements came more and more slowly; I felt I had less and less to look forward to; I found myself wondering how I could keep going with the daily grind of recovering.

I'm trained as an economist and I wondered if the economic concept of diminishing marginal returns had set in. You put the same amount of effort in, but you start getting less and less out.

Worrying about plateaus can relate to many aspects of TBI recovery. The one particular problem that I think best sets out the concept is my balance. My balance wasn't good right from the start of my recovery. I was very lucky not to further injury myself in a fall I had in rehabilitation while relearning how to walk. Even well after properly doing that, my balance was very poor and didn't improve much.

My poor balance eventually resulted in a fall while hiking one day that badly broke my arm, which is one of my regrets. The question was, though, was that the limit of my recovery of balance? Was I always going to have to deal with poor balance? When you're the one doing the recovering, such thoughts are scary, to say the least.

In the majority of TBI cases, the concept of a plateau is not only misleading, it can be downright dangerous. A "plateau" can be used as an excuse by TBI recoverers, by families, even by therapists and specialists to stop making an effort; to slacken off; to "take it easy", when doing so can lead to the recoverer missing out on valuable care.

I discuss two reasons why I don't like the concept of plateau in the posts, The Plateau and Switching Activities and The Plateau and 'Bedding Down' Gains.

Cheers,

Mike