Brain injury after overdose: a rising epidemic in Canada

UVic researcher Mauricio A. Garcia-Barrera is leading an effort to shine the light on an epidemic­ underlying the toxic drug crisis­—brain injury after overdose.

Recently for The Conversation Canada, Garcia-Barrera wrote, “there is a profound lack of awareness for overdose-related brain injury. By definition, any loss of consciousness is a hypoxic event, so any overdose with a loss of consciousness is a potential brain injury. Our research found that this relationship is not common knowledge among health-care service providers, people who use substances and their family members.”

To address this lack of awareness, Garcia-Barrera led a three-year BC Consensus on Brain Injury to call for more government action around drug induced brain injury. The three-year research project built awareness about the huge impacts of brain injury after overdose, bringing together community members, politicians and families who have lost loved ones to brain injury to share information and engage with research.

The first consensus building event on October 14, 2022, explored the issues, challenges and solutions of brain injury and the intersections of mental health and addiction, with a closer focus on overdose survival. In June 2023, the event continued exploring these intersections with a closer focus on intimate partner violence and brain injury, followed by the third event this year in June, on the impact of homelessness, addictions and brain injury.

Key learnings from the third year of the BC Consensus on Brain Injury include:

• recognition of the high prevalence of history of brain injury among those experiencing homelessness, estimated to be above 50%,
• housing instability is a significant risk factor, interacting with brain injury which increases the likelihood of becoming homeless,
• stable housing is associated with a decrease of brain injury incidence, and

researchers identified the need for supportive housing that is adapted to meet the needs of those that survive a brain injury.

The founder of the Constable Gerry Breese (CGB) Centre for Traumatic Life Losses, Janelle Breese Biagioni, is the community lead in the BC Consensus on Brain Injury. Mrs. Breese Biagioni, along with Brain Injury Canada, researchers, brain injury survivors and families who have lost loved ones to brain injury, met with politicians last fall in Ottawa to call upon the federal government to develop a national strategy on brain injury. In a victory for the families and those living with a brain injury, on June 12, 2024, the House of Commons unanimously voted in favour of Bill C-277, the National Strategy on Brain Injuries Act.

The piece in the Conversation Canada.