Prediction of recovery of continuous memory after traumatic brain injury.

Objective: To evaluate the ability of measures of initial severity, tests of attention, and demographic characteristics to predict recovery of continuous memory for words over a 24-hour period in patients with acute traumatic brain injury.

Methods: Recovery of continuous memory was assessed prospectively in 94 patients with nonpenetrating traumatic brain injury. A classification and regression tree analysis identified a hierarchical subset of variables that may be used as a simple guideline for predicting recovery of continuous memory.

The acute period of recovery from traumatic brain injury: posttraumatic amnesia or posttraumatic confusional state?

Object: The goal of this study was to characterize more fully the cognitive changes that occur during the period of acute recovery after traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Methods: The pattern of performance recovery on attention and memory tests was compared with the results of the Galveston Orientation and Amnesia Test (GOAT). Tests of memory and attention were administered serially to a hospitalized group of patients with TBI of varying severity.

The course of post-traumatic amnesia: three little words.

Objective: To provide a simple means of "real time" recognition of emergence from post-traumatic amnesia (PTA).

Methods: Ninety-one patients with traumatic brain injury (PBI); 53 minor (GCS 13-15), 19 moderate (GCS 9-12), 18 severe (GCS 3-8). Twenty-seven control subjects treated at two regional trauma units for their acute phase and followed in a hospital-based research institute were studied prospectively.