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Cognitive consequences several years after severe pediatric traumatic brain injury
Janez Ravnik, Matej Lipovšek, Alenka Sever & Katarina Bračič
Full text (pdf) | Views: 24 | Written in Slovene. | Published: August 31, 2004
Abstract: Judgment of the cognitive deficits after severe pediatric traumatic brain injury was for long time under the influence of the so called Kennard's principle: the younger the child at the time of injury, the better the outcome. The purpose of our study was to assess cognitive deficits several years after severe traumatic brain injury in childhood, to evaluate the effect of age at injury and usefulness of various clinical factors for long-term outcome prediction. Sixteen children or adolescents, who experienced severe head injury at least six years ago, were neuropsychologically tested. Despite the absence of neurological deficits in the majority, deficits in various cognitive functions were still detected in one eight to one half of participants. Memory was most frequently affected. Those who were at the time of injury more than six years old, had on average better results on almost all tests. Age had the greatest impact on deficits of the frontal lobe functions. Clinical factors were of limited predictive value, length of coma was the most useful. The results indicate tendency that is opposite to the Kennard's principle: the younger the child, the worse are the consequences of traumatic brain injury. Children who had such injury need appropriate long-term treatment of their cognitive deficits.
Keywords: traumatic brain injury, neuropsychological tests, cognitive functions, memory, intelligence
