A case of "borrowed identity syndrome" after severe traumatic brain injury.

Background: It is well known that traumatic brain injury often changes the way the patient perceives reality, which often means a distortion of the perception of self and the world. The purpose of this article is to understand the processes of identity change after traumatic brain injury.

Case Report: We describe progressive deterioration in personal identity in a former physician who had sustained a serious head injury (1998), resulting in focal injuries to the right frontal and temporal areas.

Early neurorehabilitation in a patient with severe traumatic brain injury to the frontal lobes.

Background: It seems to be generally believed that early neurostimulation after severe TBI is useless or even harmful, and neuropsychological intervention should not be initiated until the patient is medically stable. On the other hand, the unstimulated brain can incur irreversible damage. The purpose of the present study is to assess the impact of early neuropsychological rehabilitation on a patient with an extremely severe TBI.

The autistic mind: a case study.

Background: Despite years of intensive research, there is much about autism that remains theoretically and practically difficult to understand. There are presently three main theories: (1) defect of theory of mind, (2) executive dysfunction, and (3) lack of central coherence, i.e.

Neuropsychological diagnosis and treatment after closed-head injury in a patient with a psychiatric history of schizophrenia.

Background: Despite recent interest in the brain/mind problem and possible organic correlates of mental disease, relatively few case studies have examined the problem concretely. The present paper describes a 66-year-old male patient with a long history of schizophrenia, whose psychotic symptoms displayed qualitative and quantitative changes after a closed-head injury.

Case Report: After a very disturbed childhood and youth, including several jail terms, the patient was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the early 1960s and frequently thereafter hospitalized.

An evaluation of executive functions in sportsmen after traumatic brain injury.

Background. A particularly difficult problem in the rehabilitation of patients with closed-head injuries (TBI) is executive dysfunction, i.e.

Differential diagnosis of frontal syndrome in patients with closed-head injuries.

Background. A common sequela of head injury is "frontal syndrome", consisting in characteristic neurobehavioral disturbances. However, there is no ecologically valid research tool that would clearly indicate the presence of this syndrome.

Disturbances of speech and language in patients aroused from long-term coma subsequent to traumatic brain injury.

Background. The purpose of this study was to characterize the speech and language disturbances seen in patients with traumatic brain injury aroused from long-term coma at the Rehabilitation Clinic of the Bydgoszcz Academy of Medicine. Material and methods.

Post-traumatic stress disorder in Polish stroke patients who survived Nazi concentration camps.

Background: Many persons who survived Nazi concentration camps are now in advanced age, so that rehabilitation centers in Poland are seeing increasing numbers of such patients, especially after strokes. In many cases, the process of rehabilitation is severely hampered by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), while the neuropsychological consequences of the stroke itself often evoke traumatic memories and simultaneously disorganize or destroy the patient's previous coping mechanisms. The present study describes the program developed by the authors for concentration camp survivors in post-stroke rehabilitation, including the use of art therapy and specially prepared films to help the patients cope with PTSD.

Reintegrating space and object representations in patients with hemispatial neglect: two case studies.

Purpose: This article examines the effectiveness of differentiated rehabilitation programmes for patients with two distinct types of hemispatial neglect: body-centred and object-focused. We hypothesized that patients with body-centred neglect would respond to motor-control programmes designed for patients with limb apraxia, while those with object-focused neglect would require visually oriented therapy.

Material And Methods: The article describes the rehabilitation of two patients treated by the authors 6-9 months after right-hemisphere infarct.

The course of vision disturbances in a patient with the MELAS syndrome.

Background: This article describes the neuropsychological and ophthalmic symptoms presented by a patient with MELAS, a mitochondrial cytopathy. This rare disease is characterized by a remitting-relapsing course against the background of a slowly progressive degenerative process.

Case Report: The patient is a 22-year-old Polish female, with initial onset of symptoms in 1994; the clinical diagnosis of MELAS was established in 1998, and confirmed in 2000 by the discovery of a novel mtDNA mutation.

Active and passive executive function disorder subsequent to closed-head injury.

Background: Executive dysfunction is one of the most destructive sequelae of closed head injuries (CHI), often impeding or even preventing the patient's return to normal functioning. On the basis of extensive clinical testing of patients with neurobehavioral disturbances resulting from CHI, the authors propose a new typology of executive dysfunction based on the primary behavioral distinction between active ('acting without thinking') and passive ('thinking without acting') forms of executive function disorder.

Material/methods: Two patients were selected for detailed presentation.