Reaction time and cognitive-linguistic performance in adults with mild traumatic brain injury

ABSTRACT

Objective: The purpose of this study was to characterize cognitive-linguistic performance in adults with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) to advance assessment and treatment practices. We hypothesized that individuals with mTBI would demonstrate longer reaction times (RTs) and greater error rates when compared to an orthopedic injury (OI) group on a category-naming task.

Method: Participants were age and education-matched adults with mTBI (n = 20; 12 females) and adults with OI (n = 21; 5 females) who were discharged to home after an Emergency Department visit. Our primary task was a category-naming task shown to be sensitive to language deficits after mTBI. The task was adapted and administered under speeded and unspeeded conditions.

Results: There was a significant main effect of condition on RT (speeded faster than unspeeded) and accuracy (more errors in the speeded condition). There was a marginally significant effect of group on errors, with more errors in the mTBI group than the OI group. Naming RT and accuracy in both conditions were moderately correlated with injury variables and symptom burden.

Conclusions: Our data showed a marginal effect of group on accuracy of performance. Correlations found between naming and neurobehavioural symptoms, including sleep quality, suggest that the latter should be considered in future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Adult
• brain injuries
• cognitive-linguistic
• mild traumatic brain injury

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the support of the following individuals: Dr. Barbara Bendlin, Dr. Cynthia Fowler, Dr. Margarita Kaushanskaya, and Dr. Audra Sterling for their valuable input on the study and manuscript, Aimee Balistreri and Kaytlin Hanson for their assistance with data collection, reliability and scoring, Aimee Teo Broman for her statistical guidance and Mackenzie Cross for her assistance with final manuscript preparation.

Declaration of Interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. This work was supported by NIH Diversity Supplement to NICHD/NCMRR award number R01 HD071089, NIH/NIGMS award number R25GMO83252, an American Speech-Hearing Association Foundation New Century Scholar Doctoral Scholarship and a UW-Madison Emma Allen Speech Pathology Fellowship.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [R01 HD071089]; National Institute of General Medical Sciences [R25GMO83252].