Citation

Forslund MV, Roe C, Perrin PB, Sigurdardottir S, Lu J, Berntsen S, Andelic N. Brain Inj. 2017; 31(3): 329-335.

Affiliation

d CHARM (Research Centre for Habilitation and Rehabilitation Models and Services), Faculty of Medicine , University of Oslo , Oslo , Norway.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/02699052.2016.1255778

PMID

28095032

Abstract

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: To assess longitudinal trajectories of overall disability after moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to examine whether those trajectories could be predicted by socio-demographic and injury characteristics.

METHODS: Demographics and injury characteristics of 105 individuals with moderate-to-severe TBI were extracted from medical records. At the 1-, 2-, and 5-year follow-ups, TBI-related disability was assessed by the GOSE. A hierarchical linear model (HLM) was used to examine functional outcomes up to 5 years following injury and whether those outcomes could be predicted by: time, gender, age, relationship, education, employment pre-injury, occupation, GCS, cause of injury, length of post-traumatic amnesia (PTA), CT findings and injury severity score, as well as the interactions between each of these predictors and time.

RESULTS: Higher GOSE trajectories (lower disability) were predicted by younger age at injury and shorter PTA, as well as by the interaction terms of time*PTA and time*employment. Those who had been employed at injury decreased in disability over time, while those who had been unemployed increased in disability.

CONCLUSION: The study results support the view that individual factors generally outweigh injury-related factors as predictors of disability after TBI, except for PTA.

Language: en

Keywords

GOSE; Traumatic brain injury; disability; outcome measures