RESUMO
There has been considerable interest in the role of anterior cingulate and lateral frontal cortex in normal cognition, and particularly its role in cognitive control. It has also been suggested that dysfunction of this frontal brain circuit is responsible for many of the cognitive deficits observed after head injury. Several recent PET and SPECT studies of head injury have lent support to this idea, and suggest that the hypothesis is worth further examination. The paper presents a selective overview of evidence that this specific frontal lobe circuit is impaired after head injury.
Assuntos
Lesões Encefálicas/fisiopatologia , Transtornos Cognitivos/fisiopatologia , Lobo Frontal/fisiopatologia , Modelos Neurológicos , Vias Neurais/fisiopatologia , Lesões Encefálicas/complicações , Ensaios Clínicos como Assunto , Transtornos Cognitivos/etiologia , HumanosRESUMO
The purpose of the study was to investigate if a questionnaire sent by mail can give a reliable assessment of outcome on the Glasgow Outcome Scale. A questionnaire was developed for the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) and a second questionnaire for the Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOSE). The questionnaires were self-contained and designed to be completed by either a head-injured person or a proxy. The questionnaires were studied in two ways: each questionnaire was administered twice (at an interval of approximately 2 weeks), and ratings from the postal questionnaires were compared to ratings from a structured interview conducted by telephone. The four studies were carried out in separate groups of head-injured participants consisting of 32-38 individuals. For the test-retest comparison, k(w) (quadratic weights) was 0.94 for the GOS questionnaire and 0.98 for the GOSE questionnaire. For the comparison with the telephone interview, k(w) was 0.67 for the GOS and 0.92 for the GOSE. The values of k(w) indicate good agreement for all comparisons. We conclude that it is possible to obtain reliable outcome data after head injury using postal questionnaires.