While agitation has been recognized as a significant barrier to rehabilitation efforts, there has been little systematic study of its long term effects on outcome following brain injury. A preliminary study utilized the Agitated Behavior Scale to measure agitation in a sample of 96 individuals who received rehabilitation following brain injury. At discharge, those who were agitated had lower scores on the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) cognitive items and had a longer rehabilitation length of stay. The duration of agitation was negatively associated with motor and cognitive items of the FIM at discharge. Through a follow-up phone interview one year later, the presence of agitation was found to be associated with decreased likelihood that a person was living independently and was well integrated into the home environment. In addition, the presence of agitation was associated with the person not working or in school at follow-up. Social isolation was not found to be associated with agitation during the early phases of recovery. The proposed study is designed to expand on the preliminary study through an analysis of the predictive power of agitation and potential mediating variables for outcomes at discharge and one year later. A larger sample will be used (210), drawn from the cohort of subjects in the Ohio Valley Center Suboptimal Outcomes Study. Results will be used to determine appropriate intervention for further study and application to the TBI Model Systems dataset.
A summary of current research