Recovery of content and temporal order memory for performed activities following moderate to severe traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Few studies have investigated the complex nature of everyday activity memory following traumatic brain injury (TBI). This study examined recovery of content and temporal order memory for performed activities during the first year in individuals who suffered moderate to severe TBI. TBI and control participants completed eight different cognitive activities at baseline (i.e., acutely following injury for TBI) and then again approximately one year later (follow-up). Participants' free recall of the activities provided a measure of content memory. Temporal order memory was assessed with a reconstruction task. Self-report and informant report of everyday memory problems at follow-up were used to examine the relationship between activity memory performances and everyday memory. TBI participants showed significant recovery in both content and temporal order memory for activities during the first year. Despite showing significant recovery, the TBI group's activity memory performances remained poorer than that of controls at follow-up. Greater self- and informant report of everyday memory difficulties was associated with poorer temporal order memory but not content memory for activities. These findings demonstrate recovery in multiple memory processes that support activity memory following moderate to severe TBI. The findings also suggest a stronger link between everyday memory abilities and temporal order memory for activities than activity memory content in a TBI population.

Keywords:

• Activity memory
• Closed head injury
• Recovery
• Episodic memory
• Everyday memory

Acknowledgments

This study was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS; Grant R01 NS47690) to M.S.E. No conflicts of interest exist. We thank Jonathan Anderson, Randi McDonald, Shital Pavawalla, Jennifer McWilliams, Michelle Nuegen, Matthew Wright, and Ellen Woo for their support in coordinating data collection. We would also like to thank the traumatic brain injury (TBI) participants and the members of the Head Injury Research Team for their help in collecting and scoring the data.

Notes

¹We found a similar pattern of performance when evaluating content memory data from a more traditional verbal learning paradigm (i.e., the RAVLT). A 2 (group: TBI, control) × 2 (time: baseline, follow-up) mixed model ANOVA on the RAVLT delayed memory measure revealed a significant main effect of group, F(1, 62) = 12.54, MSE = 20.66, p < .001, η² = .17. The significant main effect of time, F(1, 62) = 20.55, MSE = 3.46, p < .001, η² = .26, was modified by a group by time interaction, F(1, 62) = 8.67, MSE = 3.46, p = .005, η² = .13. The TBI participants demonstrated significant improvement in their ability to retain the content of a list of words between baseline (M = 7.47) and Time 2 (M = 9.97), t(31) = –5.73, p < .001, while there was no significant change in the performance of the control group (M = 11.34 vs. M = 11.87), t(31) = –1.06. In addition, despite the improved performance of the TBI group, their ability to retain the content of the list of words remained poorer than that of controls at follow-up, t(62) = –2.10, p < .05.