Post-traumatic amnesia and its relationship to the functional outcome of people with severe traumatic brain injury

Objective: To investigate the relationship between Post-Traumatic Amnesia (PTA) duration, length of stay and functional outcomes in Australian in-patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Design: Retrospective, descriptive study using prospectively collected data from the Uniform Data Set for Medical Rehabilitation (UDSMR). Methods: Prospective collection of Westmead PTA scores and analysis of database for admissions for primary TBI rehabilitation from 1993-2003. Functional Independence Measure (FIM) was used to measure functional outcome. Statistical analysis using SPSS Version 13. Results: Six hundred and thirty-eight consecutive admissions; 611 patients had PTA classified by ranges, 436 of whom had an exact number of PTA days. Mean age 37.6 years; more than 90% had a PTA duration greater than 1 week. Significant predictors of discharge FIM scores and total length of hospitalization were PTA duration, admission FIM scores and acute length of hospitalization. Conclusions: PTA duration correlates with length of hospitalization and discharge function. PTA duration affects recovery rate. Implications include use of PTA duration for prognosticating, discharge planning and funding systems.