Association between cognitive ability and functional outcomes following traumatic brain injury- using a computer-based neurocognitive battery

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the contribution of the Cogstate Brief Battery (CBB ^TM) in the explanation of variation of functional outcomes. DESIGN: Secondary analysis of the practice-based evidence data set. SETTING: Inpatient rehabilitation setting. PARTICIPANTS: Patients (≥ 18 years of age) with traumatic brain injury who were consecutively admitted to the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute between 2008 and 2011 (n = 65). INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable Main outcome measure: Cognitive and motor components of the Functional Independence Measure. RESULTS: The addition of the CBB ^TM components resulted in a significantly better model for predicting outcomes than a basic model using demographics and clinical factors. Among all CBB ^TM components, speed and variation in the identification task and accuracy in the one card learning task were significantly associated with cognitive functional outcomes after controlling for demographic and clinical factors. Rehabilitation length of stay was the only significant clinical factor that was correlated with both cognitive and motor outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Findings of this study suggest the importance of considering visual attention and visual memory in predication of cognitive outcome and provide valuable information for researchers to consider the specific cognitive abilities in functional outcome model in future studies in addition to more traditional factors.