Occupational Therapist -DoC program manager TIRR Memorial Hermann Houston, Texas, United States
Research Objectives: This retrospective study aimed to compare several patient outcomes after their completion of the Disorders of Consciousness program (DoC) in relation to their etiology – Hypoxic/anoxic brain injury etiology and traumatic brain injury etiology.
Design: Retrospective chart review that accessed the medical charts of patients who were admitted from June 30th, 2022 to June 30th, 2023.
Setting: IRF with a specialized DoC program.
Participants: 58 people were considered. Seven patients were excluded from the study. Of the remaining 51 patients remaining in the study, 20 traumatic patients and 31 hypoxic/anoxic patients remained.
Interventions: Retrospective study
Main Outcome Measures: Outcomes assessed were sex, age, pressure injuries, discharge, length of stay, spasticity management, decannulation, and CRSRs. T-tests were conducted to analyze the average differences in groups between anoxic and traumatic brain injuries with these outcome measures.
Results: On admission, only 33% of all patients were considered UWS/VS and the hypoxic/anoxic group were more likely to test vegetate. Seven of the patients in the study were already considered to be emerged on admission. 74.5% patients in the study emerged from DoC before their discharge and only 3.9% of patients were still considered to be in a vegetative state. There is no evidence to suggest that the traumatic group has better emergence outcomes than the hypoxic/anoxic group (p> 0.1). The two groups had differences in decannulation rates, age, CMI, and pressure injuries. There was no significance between length of stay or time since injury. The hypoxic/anoxic groups were more likely to discharge to a SNF and the traumatic group was much more likely to discharge home.
Conclusions: TBI patients started at a higher level of consciousness than the hypoxic/anoxic at admission however these hypoxic/anoxic patients progressed similarly to the traumatic group and there were no differences of outcomes of consciousness at the end of the admission. There were several differences noted between the two groups. Hypoxic/anoxic injuries are rumored to have worse outcomes and this was not seen in the data collected.
Author(s) Disclosures: Employment at TIRR
Learning Objectives:
Observe differential outcomes between patients with traumatic injuries and hypoxic/anoxic injuries
Determine the differences in admission criteria between hypoxic/anoxic and traumatic brain injury populations
Describe Disorders of Consciousness therapy outcomes and promote equality of rehabilitation and therapy for these patients.
.jpg)
