(Photo courtesy Sojourner Center - BRAIN Program)

Based on initial studies of domestic violence and traumatic brain injuires, there are potentially as many as 20 million women suffering from symptoms of TBI each year, according to the Sojourner Center.

Earlier this month, the Sojourner Center, a domestic violence shelter in Phoenix, received a $1 million dollar grant to study traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in victims of domestic violence. The Sojourner BRAIN program will use the money to study and treat TBI in the coming year.

Traumatic brain injuries often are associated with athletes and combat troops, but there’s another population who suffer from TBI — women and children who are victims of domestic violence.

"It’s one of the great unspoken tragedies I think we do know from the scant research that is available, that 92 percent of women who present to domestic violence shelters report having suffered a TBI causal event in the previous 12 months," said Robert Knechtel, who is with the Sojourner Center and the interim director of the center’s BRAIN program.

Knechtel said a causal event could be a punch to the face, a blow to the head with an object or strangulation. Depending on the part of the brain that’s injured, TBI can affect speech, eye sight, memory and balance.