ABSTRACT
The duration of post-traumatic amnesia (PTA), which is the period following brain injury when patients are disoriented and impaired in the acquisition of new information, has been used as a behavioural indicator of the severity of injury. This paper reviews earlier retrospective and more recently developed prospective methods of assessing the duration of PTA. Prospective assessment that commences before the resolution of PTA overcomes the possible over- or underestimation of the duration of PTA inherent in methods that assess PTA retrospectively by clinical interview.
Subject(s)
Amnesia/diagnosis , Brain Injuries/complications , Neuropsychological Tests , Amnesia/etiology , Brain Damage, Chronic/diagnosis , HumansABSTRACT
Post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) is the period following brain trauma when patients are unable to acquire and retain information. Nineteen patients with brain injury were assessed for PTA, with a new scale, after they regained consciousness, every 24 h. Patients recovered orientation and their capacity to recognise new information, and finally their ability to recall this information. The longer the duration of PTA, the poorer was performance on an everyday memory test given one month after recovery from PTA. Patients with orthopaedic injuries and without brain injury showed minimal impairment on the PTA scale. The predictive value of the scale (multiple R = 0.88) with respect to subsequent everyday memory performance indicates its usefulness as an index of severity of brain injury.
