title: Rehabilitation of traumatic brain injury in the light of the ICF.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Traumatic brain injury is a sudden and unexpected condition that gives rise to different impairments in body functions and structures leading to dramatic life changes, not only to the patient but also to his or her family and ultimately in the wider society. As a health strategy, rehabilitation aims to reduce disability and increasing the quality of life of those people that suffer from TBI but also to reduce the social burden associated with it. Functioning is the starting point of rehabilitation and the use of measurement instruments and classifications are commonly used tools for its definition. Within the endorsement of the ICF by WHO, there is now a classification and a conceptual framework for the description of functioning providing an opportunity of a full understanding of the experience of TBI.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This paper aims to identify the utility of ICF in TBI as well as bringing new challenges for further clinical practice and research.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  ICF has shown itself to be useful in the content comparison of measurement instruments. It has also been used to describe the functional profile of individuals with TBI in both acute and chronic phases making it possible to draw comparisons across other health conditions. Furthermore, the development of the TBI ICF Core Sets provided an item bank to describe not only functional status but also to set goals and plan interventions. Overall, we now have a potentially useful tool in rehabilitation of TBI that allows us to understand the full burden of traumatic brain injury.
authors.affiliation: Brain Injury Unit, Guttmann Institut-Hospital for Neurorehabilitation adscript UAB, Badalona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Laxe
authors.affiliation: University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Alarcos
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cieza
authors.affiliation: Brain Injury Unit, Guttmann Institut-Hospital for Neurorehabilitation adscript UAB, Badalona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Beatriz
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Castaño-Monsalve
mesh_terms: D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000145:classification / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D006801:Humans; D064702:International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health
keywords: ICF; TBI ICF Core Sets; Traumatic brain injury; disability; functioning