Inpatient Physical Therapy in Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury in in Older Adults: A Scoping Review

Background: Around 500/100,000 Canadians experience a traumatic brain injury (TBI) resulting in long-term disabilities and premature death. Physiotherapy is known to positively impact the prognosis of young adults following a TBI. Objective: This is a scoping review that aimed to identify research topics in physiotherapy interventions for seniors after a TBI, describe potential knowledge gaps, and uncover needs for future research. Methodology: Ten databases were interrogated (January–March 2022). We included texts published after 2010, in English or French, scientific papers, guidelines, and gray literature sources targeting in-hospital, acute-to-subacute interventions for people aged ≥55 years old with a moderate-to-severe TBI. The outcomes sought were physical/functional capacities, injury severity, and quality of life. Results: From 1296 articles, 16 were selected. The number of participants from the studies altogether was 248,794. We identified eight retrospectives studies, three clinical trials, and five articles from the gray literature. Articles were classified according to the nature of their analysis and outcomes: (1) interventional studies including physiotherapy (at least 10 types of rehabilitative or preventive interventions were identified); (2) studies evaluating prognostic factors (five factors identified); and (3) recommendations from clinical practical guidelines and other sources (gray literature). Our results provide evidence that physiotherapy is effective in TBI acute rehabilitation for the elderly to prevent complications arising from the primary injury and to improve functional capacities. Conclusion: The heterogeneity of our results does not allow us to infer the effectiveness of one intervention over another. However, we found that the elderly population benefits from physiotherapy interventions as much as adults, but the gap must be filled with higher-quality studies to make definite recommendations.