ABI
Also written as: ABI — Acquired Brain Injury
Acquired Brain Injury; a collective term for brain damage occurring after birth from causes other than progressive neurological disease, including stroke, hypoxia, infection, and trauma.
Full Definition
Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) encompasses all forms of brain damage that arise after birth and are not attributable to congenital or degenerative conditions. Within physical medicine and rehabilitation, it is used as an umbrella term to distinguish patients with stroke, hypoxic-anoxic brain injury, infectious encephalitis, or toxic brain injury from those with traumatic brain injury (TBI), which is technically a subset of ABI. The distinction matters editorially because some funding bodies, classification systems, and clinical guidelines apply different criteria to TBI versus non-traumatic ABI. Editors must not use ABI and TBI interchangeably and should expand ABI on first use in all documents.
Usage
Usage note: Expand on first use. ABI is broader than TBI; TBI is a traumatic subset of ABI. Clarify the aetiology whenever possible.
In Context
- "The rehabilitation unit admitted patients with a range of ABI aetiologies, including hypoxic injury following cardiac arrest and viral encephalitis." — Rehabilitation unit patient population report
- "Editors must expand ABI to acquired brain injury on first use and avoid treating it as synonymous with TBI throughout the manuscript." — Editorial instruction sheet