When TBI Masquerades as Depression

After enduring a frightening car accident in January of 2021, Wichita resident Korin Mayer believed the serious injuries sustained to her right arm were the worst of it. Little did the now 20-year-old know that her collision involving a large pickup truck and an SUV would leave her mired in depression from undetected brain damage.

In light of March’s designation as National Brain Injury Awareness Month, Mayer recently reflected on her ordeal and how her initial non-diagnosis caused her eight months of mental agony as she struggled through depression caused by a frontal lobe injury.

“I never even knew there was an issue,” she said. “I broke both bones in my wrist, had torn ligaments, and wore a cast way up my right arm. A brain injury is not the first thing you think about when you have a broken wrist. But then it impacted my decision-making skills and mental health so badly that I couldn’t get control of them. I didn’t feel safe anymore.”

Plagued with short-term memory loss and thoughts of suicide, Mayer sought treatment for a month at a mental health residence in Florida. When symptoms persisted, she pursued treatment locally, hoping doctors could determine just what was triggering her declining mental state. That’s when her mother spoke with a friend of a friend whose former husband had exhibited similar symptoms and been diagnosed with brain damage issues. With that, hope sprung eternal.

Mayer worked with a local physician who offered brain mapping, a non-invasive EEG analysis of 19 brain regions, and her brain map revealed traumatic brain injury (TBI). Though terrifying at first, the diagnosis of brain inflammation and injury led to treatment that ultimately brought her unsettling journey to an end. Following multiple rounds of brain training on her iPad, she was back to her old self inside three months.

“I had worked for eight months through all kinds of therapies and diets and nothing helped. The only thing that did help was the brain training.” — Korin Mayer

“After a month of doing 45 minutes a day on my iPad, the change was super significant,” Mayer said. “My focus returned, and I could actually sit and read a book as I retrained those (impacted) brain waves. I could feel myself becoming happier and less anxious. I feel OK now.”

Her advice to anyone exhibiting depression, memory loss, or other like symptoms: get a brain map test, pronto. The results could prove life-changing, she said.

“There are a lot of things that can be helped through brain training (treatment), not just specifically brain injuries,” she said. “I had worked for eight months through all kinds of therapies and diets and nothing helped. The only thing that did help was the brain training.

“If you are struggling, don’t be discouraged. There’s always hope for you. The stigma around brain injuries is that they can’t be fixed. It’s important that people get the help they need to continue on with life and be able to do the daily things that are so hard with a brain injury.”