A preliminary study of natural history of mild traumatic brain injury by using multidimensional approach

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Spectrum of post-traumatic symptoms is frequent among mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) patients. They account for symptoms in 30-80 per cent of patients during 3-4 months and 20-30 per cent of patients six months post-injury. There are no studies from India in this area. The present longitudinal study was conducted to evaluate the natural recovery of post-traumatic symptoms in mTBI patients. METHODS: Twenty five mTBI patients presenting with initial Glasgow coma scale score of 15 were recruited initially 2-3 wk post-injury. All patients were followed up twice, after 3-4 and 6-7 months. The patients were evaluated with neuropsychological test, post-traumatic symptoms and quality of life after injury. RESULTS: Sustained attention and sensory registration were first to improve. Memory and executive domains improved partially until three months and then after complete recovery. However, a few facets of learning/memory did not improve even at six months. The post-traumatic symptoms decreased since baseline from 76 to 52 per cent at 3-4 months and further to 28 per cent at 6-7 months. The quality of life improved partially from baseline till 3-4 months and much more by 6-7 months. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: The study findings showed the course of changes in cognition, traumatic symptoms and quality of life since the time of injury till 6-7 months post-injury. Though majority of post-traumatic symptoms recovered after mTBI without any intervention, but residuals were not uncommon.