Airdate: Louis Theroux: A Different Brain

Next month ABC has two Louis Theroux specials enjoying their Free to Air premiere.

The first of these, A Different Brain, airs in early July.

This aired on Pay TV last September.

This powerful film follows the recovery of people who have suffered a traumatic brain injury. With access to a specialist brain injury rehabilitation unit, Louis looks at the impact on individuals and their families.

With an estimated one million people in the UK living with the long-term effects of a brain injury, Louis explores the issues that some of them have to deal with.

Often called a ‘hidden disability’ because those affected can show little physical signs of change, individuals with Acquired Brain Injury face enormous cognitive, behavioural and personality challenges.

Those affected are left to reconstruct who they are – from relearning the basics of walking, talking and eating, to redeveloping complex personality and behavioural traits, often in the shadow of who they once were.

Louis spends time with staff and service users at the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust, one of the UK’s largest providers of neuro-behavioural rehabilitation, to try and understand how people come to terms with it.

And the impact goes beyond the person directly affected. Family members are often caught between grieving for the loved one they’ve lost and learning to love the person they are now.

Meeting parents, partners, and children of those with brain injuries, Louis looks at how they keep loving and supporting a person who has changed so drastically.

Monday 3 July at 8.30pm on ABC2