Effectiveness of holistic neuropsychological rehabilitation for Spanish population with acquired brain injury measured using Rasch analysis.

Introduction: The Rasch model is increasingly used in the field of rehabilitation because it improves the accuracy of measurements of patient status and their changes after therapy.

Objective: To determine the long-term effectiveness of a holistic neuropsychological rehabilitation program for Spanish outpatients with acquired brain injury (ABI) using Rasch analysis.

Methods: Eighteen patients (ten with long evolution - patients who started the program > 6 months after ABI- and eight with short evolution) and their relatives attended the program for 6 months. Patients' and relatives' answers to the European Brain Injury Questionnaire and the Frontal Systems Behavior Scale at 3 time points (pre-intervention. post-intervention and 12 month follow-up) were transformed into linear measures called logits.

Results: The linear measures revealed significant improvements with large effects at the follow-up assessment on cognitive and executive functioning, social and emotional self-regulation, apathy and mood. At follow-up, the short evolution group achieved greater improvements in mood and cognitive functioning than the long evolution patients.

Conclusions: The program showed long-term effectiveness for most of the variables, and it was more effective for mood and cognitive functioning when patients were treated early. Relatives played a key role in the effectiveness of the rehabilitation program.