This is a part of the Hot Topic podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Relationships After TBI. Rosemary Rawlins, caregiver, discusses Intimacy after TBI.

Well, I think intimacy after TBI is different. The way you do things. We've been married 24 years old and people get into their habits, and now all of a sudden there's all different things going on. But the important thing I think for anybody really to remember, is that intimacy comes in so many forms.

And really, just being affectionate – if people aren't able to interact the way they used to or in certain ways, just being very affectionate. I think that that should never stop. And my dad used to tell me all the time. He used to say "There's nothing like the human touch." And it's really true. I think everybody needs to be held and to be loved and to feel that sort of intimacy.

And it's really very important in a relationship that that keeps up after an injury. And I think it bonds you and it makes that person feel loved again, because really, if that stops, you know, we had talked about how someone can feel apart from the family, and that's a huge factor.

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