Brain injuries often go untreated in victims of intimate partner violence. Here’s how that’s changing

According to Statistics Canada’s 2025 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces, 8,600 people who were victims of physical or sexual violence sustained a concussion or other head injury as a result of the violence they experienced.

Domestic violence causes brain injuries, and advocates say not enough people are talking about it

But advocates and health-care workers say those injuries are often unreported, and estimate the number to be much higher.

For the past four years, Alliance MH2 has been trying to research and raise awareness of the prevalence of TBIs in victims of intimate partner violence with assistance from Carolina Bottari, an occupational therapist and professor at the Université de Montréal’s School of Rehabilitation, whose work focuses on TBIs.

The first step was to bring the health-care and justice systems up to speed.

“[Intimate partner violence] has always been seen as a social issue, not a health issue,” Bottari said.

Bottari started by getting her master’s students into shelters to screen patients like Annie and create treatment plans.

She’s also been hosting workshops and world cafés – bringing together “key actors from all areas who work with women who have experienced intimate partner violence” in Montreal to spread awareness of TBIs with the goal of adapting services to better support victims.

“Initially we gave simple cues,” Bottari explained. “Talk slower if the woman seems to be struggling, reduce the lights if the woman seems to be getting a headache … we’ve been working at how do you adjust how you talk, how you transmit important information.”

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