Original articleEffects of Environmental Demands on Locomotion After Traumatic Brain Injury
Section snippets
Participants
We recruited people who had suffered TBI from the TBI unit of the Québec Rehabilitation Institute (QRI). All subjects suffered only 1 TBI, with severity ratings of moderate or severe based on a combination of the hospital admission Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score, duration of posttraumatic amnesia (PTA), length of the loss of consciousness, and interpretation of the neuroradiologic examination.26 Subjects also had to be able to walk at a speed greater than 0.7m/s without assistance or walking
Results
We compared 9 subjects (8 men, 1 woman) with a moderate or severe TBI (table 1) with 9 control subjects matched for age (39.7±12.3y) and sex (8 men, 1 woman). The clinical gait speeds of the TBI group were quite good.
Discussion
The results of the present study provide insight into the residual deficits of people with a moderate or severe TBI who can ambulate independently. Although in unobstructed environments these subjects had levels of locomotor function similar to those of control subjects, we found group differences for dependent variables related to increases in complexity in both the cognitive and locomotor tasks. There did not appear to be a simple change in behavior in direct relation to additional physical
Conclusions
Despite their good locomotor recovery, subjects with moderate to severe TBI showed residual deficits for walking within environments with physical obstructions and dual tasks. Given the similarity of such dual tasks to daily locomotor activities, they have the potential to be used in the assessment and rehabilitation of people with TBI.
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Supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant no. 64408).
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the author(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.