Long-term cognitive complaint and post-concussive symptoms following mild traumatic brain injury: The role of cognitive and affective factors

Abstract

Primary objective: To determine whether neuropsychological test performance or affective factors predict long-term post-concussive symptoms and cognitive complaint following mild traumatic brain injury.

Methods and procedures: Participants included 21 individuals with mild traumatic brain injury, 19 individuals with spinal injury but no injury to the brain and 20 neurologically-normal controls. All participants completed measures of post-concussive symptoms, cognitive complaint, depression, anxiety, and personality and were administered a variety of neuropsychological tests.

Main outcomes and results: The hypothesis that depression, anxiety and neuroticism would be better predictors of post-concussive symptoms than neuropsychological test performance for all three groups was supported. Contrary to expectations, however, neuropsychological test performance was a unique predictor of cognitive complaint for the mild traumatic brain injury group.

Conclusions: It was concluded that long-term post-concussive symptoms are largely representative of psychological symptoms and not brain damage, but that genuine, albeit subtle, cognitive deficits also may be present for long-term periods following mild traumatic brain injury.

• Cognition, outcome, head injury, mild brain injury, neuropsychological

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Professor Jeffrey Rosenfeld (Director, Neurosurgery Department, The Alfred) for supporting this research project.

Declaration of Interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.