Brain Injury Newsroom

Key Questions About Traumatic Brain Injury

The following three questions about the status of brain injury research underlie uncertainty about the effectiveness of rehabilitation services.
How should fundamental concepts such as recovery, functional status, and disability be defined? Because brain function is highly complex, TBI has an extremely wide range of potential outcomes, including cognitive deficits, motor disabilities, emotional and social dysfunction, personality changes, and changes in appearance. As a result, therapeutic aims and perspectives vary widely among studies, as do definitions of outcomes, making valid comparisons across studies difficult.

How should the type and severity of the injury itself be measured? Variations in methods to assess the severity of injury in patients entering rehabilitation make it difficult to estimate the effectiveness of different rehabilitation methods.

Which therapies are effective, and what is the best way to match patients with treatment approaches likely to be effective for them?

Today, a person's path to rehabilitation after sustaining brain injury may be determined by the mechanism of injury, the resources of the community, the person's employment or financial status, the consent of the family, and/or the accuracy of the emergency department diagnosis. While a few metropolitan areas have organized referral systems that connect patients with resources and rehabilitation programs, systematic methods for evaluating the needs of people who have sustained brain injury and referring them to appropriate programs are unusual. Without knowing the efficacy of rehabilitation methods in their specific applications, systematic referral that produces the desired result is not possible