TBI

INTRODUCTION: Following sudden brain damage, there is a loss of capabilities that affects the person's autonomy. Recovery from the physical, psychic and cognitive sequelae requires the application of multiple therapies, the outcomes of which need to be measured objectively. Our aim is to analyse the application of standardised instruments in determining the therapeutic outcomes in acquired brain injury. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We conducted a retrospective descriptive observational study lasting 13 months...

The Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) is one of the most commonly used clinical tests to evaluate static postural stability deficits resulting from traumatic brain events and musculoskeletal injury. This test requires a trained operator to visually assess balance and give the subject a performance score based on the number of balance "errors" they committed. Despite being regularly used in several real-world situations, the BESS test is scored by clinician observation and is therefore (a) potentially susceptible to biased and inaccurate test scores and (b) cannot be administered in the absence of a trained provider...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this systematic review was to establish the ecological validity of clinical tests of lower limb spasticity by determining whether the range of motion (ROM) and speed of limb movement during the assessment accurately replicate muscle function and joint biomechanics during walking. METHODS: An electronic search of ten databases was performed to identify all relevant articles. The reference lists of all included articles were also searched. Identification of relevant articles, data extraction and quality assessment were performed independently by two reviewers...

Daily interruption of sedative therapy and limitation of deep sedation have been shown in several randomized trials to reduce the duration of mechanical ventilation and hospital length of stay, and to improve the outcome of critically ill patients. However, patients with severe acute brain injury (ABI; including subjects with coma after traumatic brain injury, ischaemic/haemorrhagic stroke, cardiac arrest, status epilepticus) were excluded from these studies. Therefore, whether the new paradigm of minimal sedation can be translated to the neuro-ICU (NICU) is unclear...