Validation of Cognitive Enhancement Techniques for Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Overview

With an average of 21,000 diagnosed brain injuries each year among military personnel, traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains a major health concern for the United States Military Health System. Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is the most common type of brain injury sustained by military personnel and may result in chronic cognitive impairment.Unfortunately, many service members (SMs) have a history of multiple head injuries as well as psychological co-morbidities that negatively influence recovery. Advances in treatment options for cognitive rehabilitation following mTBI have been of increasing interest to the medical community and may increase treatment efficacy for injured SMs to ensure force readiness. Cognitive Rehabilitation (CR) for severe brain injury focuses on compensatory strategies for activities of daily living such as using lists to remember grocery items or reminders to take medications and attend medical appointments. Research has shown CR interventions to have considerable effectiveness in the acute and sub-acute phase of recovery after severe TBI. But there is insufficient evidence that they improve rates of individuals returning to work, independence in activities of daily living (ADL), community re-integration, or quality of life.

Cognitive Rehabilitation for mild brain injury has shown some modest evidence of effectiveness. CR interventions for mTBI typically focus on compensating for subjective and functional cognitive complaints. A number of recent studies have examined the use of compensatory CR approaches for individuals (primarily military veterans) diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment from a likely mTBI. These interventions taught individuals adaptive functional skills (e.g., cognitive mnemonics) and highlighted use of external aids such as smart phone scheduling/reminder applications. A randomized control trial that included 16 veterans with TBI (mixed mild and moderate severity), found this compensatory CR intervention was effective at reducing overall symptoms, but did not impact cognitive performance or work-outcomes. In a secondary study, there was some evidence that the compensatory CR intervention improved memory at 6 months post-treatment and quality of life at 12 months but there was not a consistent pattern of improvement compared to controls. Generalizability from civilian and veteran communities to active duty SMs may pose some unique and unexplored factors as the goal of treatment is not remediation of common activities of daily living (e.g., remembering appointments) but in contrast, the goal is military readiness needed for worldwide deployability to potential wartime environments (e.g., "cognitive readiness").