Traumatic brain injury: A comparison of three clinical tests, and analysis of recovery

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Abstract
Three commonly used clinical tests of divided attention and information-processing speed, the Trail Making Test, Auditory Short Term Memory Test under Interference, and Paced Auditory Serial-Addition Test, were administered to two groups of traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients; the performances of both groups were compared to those of matched control subjects. Group I consisted of 26 outpatients previously hospitalized for TBI of varying degrees of severity. Group II was composed of 22 nonhospitalized mildly concussed patients. One purpose of the study was to compare the sensitivity of the three tests to the effects of TBI. A second purpose was to assess the course of recovery in the concussed patients as measured by these same tests. All tests significantly discriminated the control subjects from the hospitalized TBI patients. Only the Auditory Short Term Memory test was sufficiently sensitive to differentiate the concussed patients from their control group. After mild concussion, a significant impairment exists for several weeks, with gradual improvement over 3 months.