title: Cognitive functioning following traumatic brain injury: A five-year follow-up.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the long-term prevalence and severity of cognitive deficits following significant (i.e., ventilation required for >24 hours) traumatic brain injury. To assess a comprehensive range of cognitive functions using psychometric measures with established normative, reliability, and validity data.
  
  
  METHODS
  A group of 71 adults was assessed at approximately five years (mean = 66 months) following injury. Assessment of cognitive functioning covered the domains of intelligence, attention, verbal and visual memory, visual-spatial construction, and executive functions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Impairment was evident across all domains but prevalence varied both within and between domains. Across aspects of intelligence clinical impairment ranged from 8-25% , attention 39-62% , verbal memory 16-46% , visual memory 23-51% , visual-spatial construction 38% , and executive functions (verbal fluency) 13% . In addition, 3-23% of performances across the measures were in the borderline range, suggesting a high prevalence of subclinical deficit.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although the prevalence of impairment may vary across cognitive domains, long-term follow-up documented deficits in all six domains. These findings provide further evidence that while improvement of cognitive functioning following significant traumatic brain injury may be possible, recovery of function is unlikely.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Sunway University, Bandar Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Nigel V
authors.initials: NV
authors.lastname: Marsh
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Maria R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Ludbrook
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Lauren C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Gaffaney
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Traumatic brain injury; cognitive functioning; long-term outcome; neuropsychological assessment