Self-Awareness Multilevel Assessment Scale (SAMAS): psychometric analysis of inter-rater reliability.

Background: Severe acquired brain injury (sABI) frequently causes impairment in self-awareness (ISA), leading to reduced patients' compliance to treatment, worse functional outcome, and high caregiver distress. Self-awareness (SA) is a multilevel and complex function that, as such, requires a specific and effective assessment. To date, many tools are available to evaluate the declarative, but not emergent and anticipatory levels of awareness, therefore the Self-Awareness Multilevel Assessment Scale (SAMAS) was recently proposed.

Brain Neurodegeneration in the Chronic Stage of the Survivors from Severe Non-Missile Traumatic Brain Injury: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Within-Group at One versus Nine Years from a Head Injury.

The long-term time course of neuropathological changes occurring in survivors from severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains uncertain. We investigated the brain morphometry and memory performance modifications within the same group of severe non-missile traumatic brain injury patients (nmTBI) after about ∼one year and at ∼ nine years from injury. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measurements were performed with voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to determine specific changes in the gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) and the overall gray matter volume modifications (GMV) and white matter volume modifications (WMV).

The Self-Awareness Multilevel Assessment Scale, a New Tool for the Assessment of Self-Awareness After Severe Acquired Brain Injury: Preliminary Findings.

Self-awareness (SA) is frequently impaired after severe acquired brain injury (sABI) and may lead to reduced subject's compliance to treatment, worse functional outcome, and high caregiver distress. Considering the multifaceted nature of SA, a specific and effective assessment is crucial to address treatment of impairment of SA (ISA). Many tools can currently assess ISA; however, they have some important limits.

Language-Related Brain Potentials in Patients With Disorders of Consciousness: A Follow-up Study to Detect "Covert" Language Disorders.

Language disorders may occur in patients with disorders of consciousness (DoCs), and they could interfere with the behavioral assessment of consciousness and responsiveness. Objective. In this study, we retrospectively explored whether ERP N400 was eventually associated with the presence of aphasia diagnosed in those patients who had evolved into Exit-Minimally Conscious State (E-MCS) at the clinical follow-up.

Cognitive functions underlying prospective memory deficits: A study on traumatic brain injury.

This study investigates prospective memory (PM) deficits as well as the interplay between performance in executive functions (EFs), speed of processing, episodic memory and PM in traumatic brain injury (TBI), differentiating between time based and event based tasks. The Memory for Intentions Screening Test was administrated to a sample of 19 participants with TBI and 50 healthy controls. Tasks probing different EFs (i.

Normative Data for the Hayling and Brixton Tests in an Italian Population.

Objective: The Hayling and Brixton tests constitute a short test battery that quickly assesses verbal and spatial inhibition and flexibility. This battery has shown high construct validity and strong reliability in clinical and experimental settings. The aim of this study was to develop an Italian version of the Hayling and Brixton tests and obtain normative values.

The Tower of London (ToL) in Italy: standardization of the ToL test in an Italian population.

Deficit in planning and problem-solving, affecting a wide range of neuropsychological patients, has been widely investigated using the Tower of London (ToL) test, as developed by Shallice (Philos Trans R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci 298:199-209, 1). The ToL taps on several executive functions (EF), such as planning, time for planning or rule breaks, which may be usefully indexed by different ToL measurements. However, in its original version, the different aspects involved in ToL are not evaluated in a specific way.

Self-awareness rehabilitation after Traumatic Brain Injury: A pilot study to compare two group therapies.

Background And Purpose: Deficits of self-awareness (SA) are very common after severe acquired brain injury (sABI), especially in traumatic brain injury (TBI), playing an important role in the efficacy of the rehabilitation process. This pilot study provides information regarding two structured group therapies for disorders of SA.

Methods: Nine patients with severe TBI were consecutively recruited and randomly assigned to one SA group therapy programme, according either to the model proposed by Ben-Yishay & Lakin (1989) (B&L Group), or by Sohlberg & Mateer (1989) (S&M Group).

Persistence of Gender Related-Effects on Visuo-Spatial and Verbal Working Memory in Right Brain-Damaged Patients.

The aim of the present study was to verify if gender differences in verbal and visuo-spatial working memory would persist following right cerebral lesions. To pursue our aim we investigated a large sample (n. 346) of right brain-damaged patients and healthy participants (n.

The Default Mode Network Connectivity Predicts Cognitive Recovery in Severe Acquired Brain Injured Patients: A Longitudinal Study.

To study the functional connectivity in patients with severe acquired brain injury is very challenging for their high level of disability because of a prolonged period of coma, extended lesions, and several cognitive and behavioral disorders. In this article, we investigated in these patients the default mode network and somatomotor connectivity changes at rest longitudinally, in the subacute and late phase after brain injury. The aim of the study is to characterize such connectivity patterns and relate the observed changes to clinical and neuropsychological outcomes of these patients after a period of intensive neurorehabilitation.

Women outperform men in remembering to remember.

The study of gender differences in prospective memory (i.e., remembering to remember) has received modest attention in the literature.

Theory of mind impairment after severe traumatic brain injury and its relationship with caregivers' quality of life.

Purpose: Theory of mind (ToM) deficits are common consequences of severe Traumatic Brain Injury (sTBI), but little is known about their impact on patients' and their caregivers' quality of life. This study aimed (i) to examine the presence of ToM difficulties in individuals with sTBI and adequate levels of self-awareness (SA); (ii) to investigate their relationship with perceived Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) in patients and their caregivers.

Methods: Twenty individuals with sTBI and adequate levels of SA, and 20 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited.

Selective Cognitive Dysfunction Is Related to a Specific Pattern of Cerebral Damage in Persons With Severe Traumatic Brain Injury.

Objective: Cognitive dysfunction is a common sequela of traumatic brain injury (TBI); indeed, patients show a heterogeneous pattern of cognitive deficits. This study was aimed at investigating whether patients who show selective cognitive dysfunction after TBI present a selective pattern of cerebral damage.

Setting: Post-Coma Unit, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy.

Low self-awareness of individuals with severe traumatic brain injury can lead to reduced ability to take another person's perspective.

Aims of this study were (i) to verify whether a deficit or a lack of self-awareness can lead to difficulties in assuming another person's perspective after a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI); (ii) to verify whether perspective-taking deficits emerge more from performance-based tasks than self-reports; and (iii) to evaluate the possible relationships between perspective-taking difficulties and some clinical, neuropsychological, neuropsychiatric, and neuroimaging variables. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index, Empathy Quotient, first-order false-belief, and faux pas written stories were administered to 28 patients with severe TBI and 28 healthy controls. The Awareness Questionnaire was also administered to TBI patients and their caregivers.

Memory and anatomical change in severe non missile traumatic brain injury: ∼1 vs. ∼8 years follow-up.

In previous studies, we investigated a group of subjects who had suffered from a severe non missile traumatic brain injury (nmTBI) without macroscopic focal lesions and we found brain atrophy involving the hippocampus, fornix, corpus callosum, optic chiasm, and optic radiations. Memory test scores correlated mainly with fornix volumes [37,38]. In the present study, we re-examined 11 of these nmTBI subjects approximately 8 yr later.

Neuropsychiatric disorders in persons with severe traumatic brain injury: prevalence, phenomenology, and relationship with demographic, clinical, and functional features.

Objective: To characterize neuropsychiatric symptoms in a large group of individuals with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to correlate these symptoms with demographic, clinical, and functional features.

Methods: The Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), a frequently used scale to assess behavioral, emotional, and motivational disorders in persons with neurological diseases, was administered to a sample of 120 persons with severe TBI. Controls were 77 healthy subjects.

Metacognitive unawareness correlates with executive function impairment after severe traumatic brain injury.

Unlabelled: The aim of this study was to evaluate clinical, neuropsychological, and functional differences between severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) outpatients with good and/or heightened metacognitive self-awareness (SA) and those with impaired metacognitive SA, assessed by the Patient Competency Rating Scale (PCRS). Fifty-two outpatients were recruited from a neurorehabilitation hospital based on the following inclusion criteria: 1) age > or = 15 years; 2) diagnosis of severe TBI; 3) availability of neuroimaging data; 4) post-traumatic amnesia resolution; 5) provision of informed consent.

Measures: A neuropsychological battery was used to evaluate attention, memory and executive functions.

Executive function and metacognitive self-awareness after severe traumatic brain injury.

The objective of this study is to identify the clinical, neuropsychological, neuropsychiatric, and functional variables that correlate with metacognitive self-awareness (SA) in severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) outpatients and to assess the influence of the same variables on the sensory-motor, cognitive, and behavioral-affective indicators of SA. This cross-sectional observational study evaluated 37 outpatients from May 2006 to June 2007 in a neurorehabilitation hospital on the basis of the following inclusion criteria: (1) age 8); (3) posttraumatic amnesia (PTA) resolution; (4) capacity to undergo formal psychometric evaluation despite cognitive and sensory-motor deficits; (5) absence of aphasia; (6) availability of informed consent. A neuropsychological battery was used to evaluate attention, memory, and executive functions.

Dysfunction of a structurally normal motor pathway in a brain injury patient as revealed by multimodal integrated techniques.

We report on a patient with left hemiparesis and peripersonal neglect after post-traumatic left frontal hemorrhage, who underwent fMRI, TMS and TCD to identify the functional abnormalities that account for his neurological symptoms, in the absence of any detectable lesion affecting right motor areas.