What are some exercises/games/etc that can help with brain trauma?

Full disclosure, Im not professional in the matter. My first thought was luminosity/ brain fit. Which you have tried. It sounds like you're doing a pretty good job for your knowledge. I suggest try thinking of it in a different way. Puzzles are great, life is full of puzzles, if there are specific things he struggles with try breaking it down and thinking of it like a puzzle. I worked with people with disabilities for a number of years. From autism, cerebral palsy, to TBI's. Often what was most helpful was that all of these variations were under one roof. Often something that worked for someone with TBI worked for someone with autism. Sometimes you just have to stop thinking about the disorder or thing you are dealing and think of it more simply. You obviously care, you could try consulting with a therapist or finding a support group for family members. Do not forget to take care of yourself and find someone to talk to it helps, a lot.

I have had a TBI and have made a full recovery. My injury was not as bad as your father's but I was still months recovering. Two points I'd make from my own recovery are: i was not always aware that I was impaired, some days realising it more than others. This can take the incentive out of trying and you then rely on others to keep gently pushing. It sounds like you are already aware of this. Secondly, the biggest factor in getting better was being pushed and pushing myself. I was lucky to have a very tolerant workplace that let me just try and do what I used to do. That made a huge difference, so try not to quarantine your father from any activities, and even if you don't think he can do something or understand something, try anyway. I'm not sure how you get him to run with that as well if he doesn't feel like it, but it's important. Good luck.

If I am reading your question correctly this may be an entirely semantic problem. The kind of "therapist" one might be referred to for a brain injury is not the kind of therapy that old school, stiff upper lip types have internalized stigma around. This may have not been a readily apparent confusion for your father's doctors. He needs rehabilitative therapy (including things like occupational or perhaps speech therapy, for example). These therapies are a part of medical recovery from a physical injury to his brain. The doctors may not have realized that the word "therapy" was a trigger for him to reject these very important services. It needs to be cleared up immediately that the "therapy" he needs is akin to physical rehab for a knee injury. It is not related to any sort of therapy for emotional or social problems. They are vastly different fields and a resistance to one should not prevent his access to the other. If his current cognitive issues prevent his attending to the difference, maybe use substitute words like 'tech' for 'therapist' or some strategies around the language. Talk to his doctors about the misunderstanding as soon as you can. A serious brain injury shouldn't have to be rehabbed by family members with iPads when there are professionals who are trained to do this and are just called by the wrong titles!

Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist who had a stroke. There's a TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight?language=en, and she also has a book called http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stroke-Insight-Jill-Bolte-Taylor/dp/0340980508/. I can't find my copy right now, but from memory, she mentions things like doing jigsaw puzzles and re-learning new things helping her. She specifically mentions her mother offering her two choices for what she wanted for dinner, and choosing the one that she didn't recognise (salmon, IIRC). Watch the video. You really can't tell that Bolte Taylor had a stroke. Another person to Google is V.S. Ramachandran. He's done some pretty cool things with conditions like impostor syndrome and pain from amputated limbs. Your father can very likely recover from this. A useful term to google is neuroplasticity. The study of the concept is still relatively new, but very promising. The brain has to be able to change and create new connections or human beings wouldn't be able to learn to do things like walk and speak. I am not any kind of doctor, I just have an interest in this stuff, but I think the key is to apply a gentle pressure to force the brain to work. Think of a parent teaching their child to walk. At first, the child can't manage it, but over time, with repetition and practice, they learn how. Think of an adult learning to dance - same story. If he likes Scrabble, maybe have him try Boggle or http://www.wordtwist.org/. One thing to keep in mind is that figuring out how to do a home repair isn't that simple, really. You have to be able to understand language, visualise the physical orientation in space of the thing that needs repairing, have the physical and visual acuity to operate the tool, use your imagination to run through the possible permutations of what to do, etc. Your brain is a conglomeration of many different systems that have to work in concert, and that's not always easy. It will probably be difficult, but any time he gets confused or can't work something out, or follow the thread of conversation, that's a sign that you need to persevere. He'll probably get frustrated, but if he can problem solve in an app on the ipad, he can figure out how to get round the supermarket in the most efficient way. He'll need to think of himself in a physical space, rather then look at some things in a space, which is two different skills, but he can likely relearn them if he tries. When you run up against something he can't figure out, try cutting it up into pieces and think about which part of the brain is being used. Language, for example, uses two parts of the brain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernicke%27s_area for understanding what is being said to you, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca%27s_area for doing the speaking in return. Looking at a task he can do versus one he can't might give you some clues as to what you can change to make it work better for him.

Crosswords are actually very good at building associations, which is where your father sounds like he may have a deficit. The new York Times crosswords start easy on Mondays and get harder through the week to Saturday, then Sunday is a bigger Wednesday puzzle. The app is great, and had built in clues and stuff, and will perhaps ignite curiosity that will drive him to Google other things too.

The http://www.superbetter.com app & website were created by a game designer Jane McGonigal after http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_give_you_10_extra_years_of_life. There are lots of gentle "quests" and challenges, and opportunities to win titles and badges. My mom used it while convalescing from a fall. The program encourages you to connect with your friends and family, and to set gentle goals and meet them -- sort of like a therapist who comes to your phone.

My dad had a major bleed a few years ago with mostly frontal lobe damage. He has found a dance class helps (ballroom). I know you asked for apps but with my dad the difference is so apparent, I can tell when he hasn't been in a class...and most of his damage is to executive function. For him there is something almost magical about the combination of movement, music, learning the steps and listening to instruction. Good luck, I hope he continues to recover.

A friend of mine had a TBI - kicked in the head by a horse. Her injury wasn't obvious at all and it's taking a long time to recover. Among other issues he has odd perceptual things, to do with balance, complexity and understanding motion for instance. Going outside and seeing traffic going in different directions was overwhelming for her. One thing that has helped was physically going outside, walking and performing simple tasks. Another was getting some type of a brain scan that mapped some of the actual damage in her brain. Sorry, I can't recall what sort of scan it was, but it proved the need for more therapy and also made her feel a bit less lost, as there was evidence something needed fixing. So warriorqueen and TNGE are spot on in their advice, I think.

From my experience of this with a close family member, one of the hardest things here is how different it can be from one day to the next. This is very common in TBI, to my understanding. The scientific support for "brain training" is kind of all over the place, frankly. For example:http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/apr/21/brain-training-online-neuroscience-elizabeth-day or http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/do-brain-workouts-work-science-isnt-sure/. To my mind, one thing a lot of the science seems to agree on is that if you have an interest in getting better at a particular task, the most likely way to do that is to do that task. My family member has done really well with doing things she enjoyed doing before: crossword puzzles, crafting, a musical instrument. The advantage is that she really enjoys those things and those are the things she most wants to be able to do again. She has also enjoyed http://www.brainpop.com/. It isn't really interactive, but she still enjoys learning new concepts, and it is in nice chunks for her attention span. Somewhat unrelatedly, I have heard very good things about http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002ENBM9O/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/, as a resource for you.