Article
The remediation of cognitive and behavioural deficits after brain injury: A comparison of different age groups
Die Veränderung kognitiver Defizite und Verhaltensauffälligkeiten nach Hirnschädigung: ein Vergleich verschiedener Altersgruppen
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Published: | April 23, 2004 |
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Outline
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Objective
The medical therapy of old people is, in general, controversially discussed. Limited rehabilitation data concerning the neuropsychological deficits after trauma, stroke or bleeding and their neurosurgical intervention, and following therapy has already been published. We wish to present a rehabilitation study.
Methods
A sample of more than 200 patients was divided into three age groups. All completed a neuropsychological assessment battery (memory, attention, visual perception, executive processes) at the beginning and at the end of our multidisciplinary approach. We analysed the clinical data by analysis of variance (ANOVA).
Results
The rehabilitation started, on average, 3 weeks post trauma or operation. The reaction time (alertness) decreased in all age groups. The patients became more alert. In a selective attention task (GoNogo) patients in all ages profit from our interventions and the verbal memory (learning) capacity increased in all age groups.
Conclusions
In all ages we found good response to our interventions. These results confirmed the necessity and the success of individualized and different neuropsychological therapy in an early phase of neurosurgical rehabilitation in all ages.