A comment on "Factors associated with long-term post-traumatic amnesia"

CARTA AO EDITOR

A comment on "Factors associated with long-term post-traumatic amnesia"

Viroj Wiwanitkit

Dear Editor, I read the recent article entitled, "Factors associated with long-term post-traumatic amnesia" with great interest⁽¹⁾. Silvia & Sousa concluded that "The use of midazolam and phenytoin, and the severity of headinjury, were identified as related factors for long-term amnesia⁽¹⁾." The findings are very interesting. However,some issues should be discussed. First, although this study consists of a statistically acceptablenumber of subjects, the heterogenicity of the subjects should be discussed. The subjects representdifferent age groups and socioeconomic backgrounds, which lead to differences in results. At aminimum, older patients are more likely to have neurological deficits in general. A recent reportby Willemse-van Son, Ribbers, Verhagen & Stam (2007) concluded that "Older age, pre-injuryunemployment, pre-injury substance abuse and more disability at rehabilitation discharge areimportant predictors of long-term disability⁽²⁾."

Correspondence:

Professor Viroj Wiwanitkit

Wiwanitkit House, Bangkhae, Bangkok Thailand 10160

Email: [e-mail]

Phone: [phone]

The authors respond to a comment on "Factors associated with long-term post-traumatic amnesia"

Silvia Cristina Fürbringer Silva^I; Regina Marcia Cardoso de Sousa^II

^ICentro Universitário São Camilo – São Paulo (SP), Brasil

^IIDepartamento de Enfermagem Médico-Cirúrgica, Escola de Enfermagem da Universidade de São Paulo USP - São Paulo (SP), Brasil

^{Endereço para correspondência}

Dear Editors,

We received the comments on our recently published article, "Factors associated with long-term post-traumatic amnesia", from Professor Viroj Wiwanitkit.We appreciated your comments about our study and we think that they are important for research relatedto post-traumatic brain injury recovery. We would like to offer some explanations about the issues thatwere raised by Professor Wiwanitkit. The large number of independent variables in this study demandedan acceptable number of subjects with different characteristics to allow for association tests. The subjectsgreater than 60 years old were included in the sample to analyze the association between age and durationof post-traumatic amnesia. However, subjects with backgrounds of dementia and traumatic brain injurywere excluded from this study to avoid the interference of pre-injury neurological deficits in the results.The core of our study was the duration of post-traumatic amnesia in the acute period following traumaticbrain injury and the factors associated with this, rather than analyzing outcomes of traumatic brain injury.Therefore, our variables were different from those reported by Willemse-van Son, Ribbers, Verhagen &Stam (2007)⁽¹⁾. We appreciate the opportunity to respond to the comments on our study.

REFERÊNCIAS

1. Willemse-van Son AH, Ribbers GM, Verhagen AP, Stam HJ. Prognostic factors a long-term funcioning and productivity aftertraumatic brain injury: a systematic riview perspectives cohart studies. Clin Rehabil. 2007; 21(11): 1024-37. Review

• 1. Silvia CF, Sousa RM. Fatores associados à amnésia pós-traumática de longa duração. Acta Paul Enferm. 2011;24(2):232-8.
• 2. Willemse-van Son AH, Ribbers GM, Verhagen AP, Stam HJ. Prognostic factors of long-term functioning andproductivity after traumatic brain injury: a systematic review of prospective cohort studies. Clin Rehabil.2007;21(11):1024-37. Review.

Datas de Publicação

• Publicação nesta coleção
  02 Dez 2011
• Data do Fascículo
  2011