Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, recalled a Native mother in her 30s who started having memory loss and other dementia-like symptoms.

The woman had suffered multiple blows to her head and falls at the hands of her husband over the years. He had wanted to disable her, to make it more difficult for her to keep her children if she tried to leave him, Echo-Hawk said.

Many Native women have traumatic brain injury symptoms as a direct result of abuse, Echo-Hawk said. Tribal health advocates and groups serving survivors have long been aware of the problem, she said, but there has been little national research documenting the extent of it.

“It’s a very difficult thing to see,” Echo-Hawk of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma said. “This is a pressing concern.”

The Ur

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