Post-traumatic amnesia and post-trauma quality of life

Abstract

The present study aims to compare quality of life of victims with long and short term post-traumatic amnesia and to analyze the relation between quality of life and length of amnesia, including or not the comatose period. This prospective cohort study, gathered data during the hospital stay and 3 and 6 months post- trauma. Blunt traumatic brain injury patients, over 14 years old, with no prior diagnosis of dementia or brain injury, admitted to a trauma center 12 hours post-trauma were included. The results were unfavorable among patients with long term amnesia. Correlation between length of post-traumatic amnesia and quality of life domains were more expressive when excluded comatose period, indicating that it must not be computed in the length of post-traumatic amnesia.