Abstract for presentation at 6th World Congress on Brain Injury

Objective: The study attempted at developing a Neuropsychological rehabilitation programme to ameliorate Neuropsychological deficits in head injured patients.
Method: The sample consisted of 40 patients, 20 each in treatment and wait- listed control groups. The treatment group consisted of 10 mild, 11 moderate and 9 severe head injury patients and underwent the rehabilitation programme. While the wait-listed control group, (consisting of 8 severe, 11 mild, and 1 moderate head injured patients) did not receive any treatment. The mean age for the treatment group was 29.25 and for the control group was 29.55. The mean duration after the injury for the treatment group was 21.85 months and 12.80 for the control group. The outcome measures used were Comprehensive neuropsychological tests, Subjective Well Being Scale (SUBI), Rivermead Postconcussion Symptom questionnaire (RPQ) and the Rivermead Head Injury Follow up Questionnaire. Both the groups were assessed on the outcome measures at the beginning of the study and after 6 weeks. The Neuropsychological rehabilitation programme comprised of simple paper pencil tasks loading on attention, executive function and memory. The levels of difficulty were increased based on patient performance on the specific tasks. The treatment was given on a daily basis for one-hour duration for 30 sessions.
Results: On the post assessment, after six weeks the treatment group performed significantly better on Neuropsychological tests, had decreased symptoms on RPQ and increased subjective well being scores on SUBI compared to the control group.
Conclusion: The study suggests that neuropsychological rehabilitation is efficacious in symptom reduction and ameliorating cognitive deficits across severity of head injury. It is time and cost effective.