Children sustaining a severe acquired brain lesion before age 3 years: a follow-up study at 1 year from insult

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To describe the functional and cognitive outcome of acquired brain injury of different aetiologies in children before age 3 years, at initial hospitalization and at a 1-year follow-up, after a rehabilitation programme.

Method: Data were collected at 6 months and at 12 months from the event; cognitive data were collected as soon as possible at T1. The full sample was divided into three groups according to aetiology.

Results: At T0, 74 patients showed so severe a cognitive impairment that they could not be evaluated, others presented with motor, linguistic and cognitive deficits. At T1, the proportion of non-evaluable patients decreased to 58 children. Patients with anoxic lesions showed the most unfavourable motor and visual outcome; patients with infectious lesions showed most frequently a motor global delay.

Conclusions: At 1 year from insult about 50% of patients could undergo a cognitive evaluation. Improvement differed according to aetiology.

KEYWORDS:

• Acquired brain injuries
• preschool children
• outcome research
• rehabilitation
• follow-up study

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the therapists who cooperated in rehabilitating our young patients, in particular therapists of neuropsychomotor therapy, Villa C., Straniero V. and Bissichini S.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors report no declarations of interest. This work was supported by ‘Ricerca Ministeriale, fondi 5x1000, 2010’, Scientific Institute ‘E. Medea’ awarded to Sandra Strazzer as Principal Investigator, and ‘Ricerca corrente, 2015–2016’ Ministry of Public Health, Italy.