First of all, thanks INFINITELY to all the helpful dopers who assist with figuring out the facts behind fictional scenarios for my book!
So here’s another one: The main character wakes up in a hospital with a broken arm and a mild traumatic brain injury. She recognizes her cousin, who was in the same train accident, but that’s it. Passports, state ID’s, and evidence of bank accounts were found in her purse. She also has a mysterious monthly annuity from an unknown source, and there’s an address of the apartment where she and cousin live. She’s eighteen years old, and her cousin is 16. HOWEVER… she has no memory of her former life. Neither does the cousin. (We, the readers, know that it’s because their memories were wiped by demons, so this doesn’t need to be a realistic medical condition.) They both remember how to function in society (more or less), and they can make new memories from that day on.
So what would actually happen in this situation? Would she be allowed to go home? Would she need to talk to a medical social worker first? Would she talk to the neurologist? Would she be kept at the hospital because of the loss of memory? Could she take her cousin with her (no other living relatives can be found)?
Sorry to be “that guy” but how can a brain injury be both mild and traumatic? It has to be one or the other right?
Definitely she would consult with, at minimum, a neurologist and a social case worker. The case worker could, additionally, assign them to a foster family (at least temporarily while the details were worked-out.) Since she’s 18, I’m not entirely sure what legal rights a social worker has in this case-- probably every US State has different laws on this, and I can’t even speak for International law, so you’ll have to research that.
The hospital will make every effort to clear the bed as quickly as possible. They wouldn’t toss her out into the street, but if her injuries were treated she wouldn’t be able to linger in the hospital for more than half a day or so.
Alternatively, if demons are involved, they could manipulate things to get her out on the street sooner, or stuck in there forever, depending on their purposes. Demons are jerks.
I think I might understand what you meen by an injury being “mild traumatic”, but I don’t think it’s the best phrase. What you probably mean is that the injury was traumatic (it isn’t something superficial that the patient can just get a quick treatment for and move on with their life), but that it isn’t as traumatic as some brain injuries (their skull is not wide open with bits of brain hanging out, and they have retained some thinking ability).
Are there adult foster families? I know that there are institutions for the mentally handicapped, but is there a program similar to foster care where the patients are sent to individual families that receive a stipend for taking care of the person? That could make an interesting story. The differences in how different families take care of their individual charges could make for some interesting comparisons and allegations of unfair treatment. E.g. a brain-damaged adult who is partway to recovery but is still not ready to live on their own might allege that their foster parent/caretaker is being unfair by not letting him play video games after 9pm when 90% of the other foster caretakers let their charges do that.
There’s an institution for the mentally disabled near me, but the last time I checked, it was primarily for developmentally delayed/impaired people (i.e. people that “grew up retarded”) rather than people who were more or less normal and/or functional adults until a traumatic injury wrecked their brain.
Nope. That’s the medical definition. Mild/moderate/severe TBI. Mild TBI’s wouldn’t go to a foster family at 18 if they showed no other symptoms (don’t ask how I know that!) Although it could be a good plot point… maybe Victoria learned that would happen if she kept telling the truth (that she had no memory of the past,) so she started lying and the cousin did the same? So…
Could a 16 year old boy be sent home with an 18 year old cousin if they had financial resources and somewhere to go, but no other relatives?
There would have to be something that designated the 18-year old as the legal guardian. If that doesn’t already exist, they might be able to get a judge to assign guardianship to the 18-year old (a bit of a stretch), but it would take a while. Until then, the 16-year old would probably be put in foster care.
