单选题 .    The government programs of the 1970s were a great success in saving people's lives. Unfortunately for many survivors, no comparable programs provide medical and societal support after the initial medical crisis. Not only is acute care in the hospital setting extremely expensive, but, in scores of thousands of cases, head-injury survivors need major care beyond hospitalization. A single survivor of severe head injury may require 5 to 10 years of intensive treatment with an estimated lifetime cost of more than $4 million.
    In the last decade, a variety of facilities have sprung up to deal with the multiple physical, psychological, and social needs of this new patient population. They include nursing homes, specialized rehabilitation (康复) wings of hospitals, and free-standing rehabilitation program to support such institutions. Funding for the high-tech, personnel-intensive, and sometimes long-term treatment they provide remains seriously inadequate.
    During the long and costly process of post-trauma (外伤) treatment and rehabilitation, the family of the brain-injury patient will find their lives turned upside down. In an instant, a family member has been changed dramatically and often permanently not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.
    One of the most frequent comments family members make in this situation is that the patient is "not the same person" as before the accident. The family must undergo a process that often has been compared to the adjustment following the death of shock, numbness, denial, grief, and anger—to some kind of acceptance of the survivor's new status.
    Studies show that a family's process of grieving after a head injury—a process that receives much less societal support than grieving after a death—takes a more circuitous (迂回曲折的) course. Different with death, frustration and difficulty in coping are likely to increase, rather than diminish, over time.
    Families of brain-injured survivors go through many painful experiences. They see their hopes for the future shattered and have enormous care-giving and financial demands placed upon themselves because their child is not getting better. Siblings may suffer both from the psychological trauma of seeing a brother or sister permanently disabled and from the parents' concentration on his or her plight. Spouses, especially, suffer with physical, financial, sexual, and psychological stress. Many—90% in one survey—feel trapped in a situation injured spouse going, sometimes with little psychological reward for their efforts. Little wonder so many such families become dysfunctional (机能不良). The divorce rate under such circumstances also is high.1.  What can we learn from the first paragraph?