Clock Drawing and Mini-Mental State Examination in Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the performances of patients with mild, moderate, and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) on the Clock Drawing Test (CDT), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and neuropsychological measures as well as to correlate these measures with outcome assessed by the Extended Glasgow Outcome Score. This study was conducted in an acute care early rehabilitation setting on 102 patients with mild, 30 with moderate, and 30 with severe TBI. Patients with moderate and severe TBI showed more impairment on the CDT compared with those with mild TBI. Similar results were obtained for the MMSE, F _(2,159df) = 3.789, p = .025. Finally, a receiver-operating characteristic analysis showed that the CDT and the Trail-Making Test-Part B (TMT-B) in combination have the potential for prediction of outcome in a TBI population. In conclusion, this combination of the CDT and the TMT-B seems to be useful for early assessment of TBI patients.

Key words:

• clock drawing
• level 1 trauma center
• Mini-Mental State Examination
• outcome
• traumatic brain injury

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

No competing financial interests exist.

Notes

*Descriptive statistics were presented by mean ± SD or by percentage.

*p is significant at <.05.