Due to the damage to the brain, information may be processed less quickly than before. This consequence of brain injury can have a huge impact on daily life.

 

Processing speed is the time between receiving and responding to an auditory stimulus (hearing), a visual stimulus (seeing), or a movement stimulus.

It is a cognitive ability. It involves:

• the time it takes for a person to perform a mental task
  
• the speed at which a person can understand the information
  
• the speed at which a person can respond to the information received
  
• the speed at which a person can retrieve something from memory

 

A slowed rate of processing information may be noticeable when it takes longer for the person with a brain injury to respond to a question or command than you would expect.

It apparently takes longer for the 'penny to drop'.

 

The problem with delayed information processing does says nothing about intelligence, although certain tasks will be more difficult than others.

 

For example, people with delayed information processing have to perform at their peak during a conversation: listening, processing what is said, understanding it and then also responding. A kink can occur anywhere in this chain. Then a joke or a serious undertone and the message behind the message can them.

 

Many people with brain damage indicate that thinking is slower and takes much more time and attention. When everything in the head is slower, the outside world seems like a film played at an accelerated pace.
It also takes a lot of energy to follow all of that. If a lot is said or done at the same time, people can quickly no longer keep up with the pace. This can result in considerable fatigue. Mental activities such as reading a book or watching something on TV take up a lot of time and are tiring. The world is moving too fast...

Due to the slowed pace, people with brain damage are extra sensitive to time pressure, and they may feel that they are running out of time.

 

Slowed information processing speed can affect 'executive functions'. These are the higher control functions of the brain, such as planning, organizing behavior, setting goals, making decisions and initiating tasks.
It can negatively affect other attention functions (e.g., when dividing attention) and memory (e.g., when storing information).
It can lead to a slow work pace and rapid mental fatigue.

 

This can cause problems with all sorts of seemingly simple everyday tasks and activities, such as work and study, cooking, social activities and in traffic.
It can also happen that it only goes wrong at a single point, for example when taking language literally, when a word has multiple meanings and you have to look up which word is meant (word concepts), or with arithmetic skills. After all, everything depends on the location of the damaged brain tissue.

 

This can also make it impossible to follow the subtitles on the television and watch a film at the same time. Let alone if there are also background noises or visual distractions, such as a flashing light.

 

One may still be thinking about what has just been said, while the speaker has already moved on to another topic.

 

Overstimulation (cognitive overstimulation) can also be a result of delayed information processing. There is usually a stacking effect between different forms of overstimulation.

Normally, the sensory stimuli of sound, light, seeing movements, smell, heat, cold or even a written text message are filtered on what is important or not.

 

If all these stimuli come in unfiltered, it is logical that one can no longer concentrate and needs more time to respond to a question or the like.

 

Tips for the environment

 

• The environment can help by taking into account the fact that thinking, reacting or retrieving from memory is slower.

 

• Realize that listening is often more tiring for the person with brain injury than speaking.
  
• It can be helpful if you speak in short sentences. Do not speak in subordinate clauses, that only requires a lot of working memory.
  
• Use and emphasize keywords.
  
• Be specific. Realize that understanding an abstract term will take more time. If necessary, describe a word if that word has multiple meanings.
  
• Realize that humor, sarcasm or irony, ambiguity may be taken literally.

 

• Maintain eye contact or ask for a short summary to check whether something has been understood.
  
• Keep an eye on the person with brain damage in a group, whether he or she shows signs of fatigue, yawns, rubs his or her eyes or looks elsewhere.
  
• If you notice that the speaker in the group is going too fast or 'overdoing it', point out the speaking pace.
  
• Provide support with pictures where necessary.
  
• Always adjust to the condition. When a person is tired, communicating will be more difficult. Come back to it another time.
  

 

• Give time. Remove the time pressure. Do not work with deadlines.
  
• Make sure there are no distracting factors (audible, visible, tangible, etc.).