$647,000 awarded to support head injury research

The National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke has awarded a grant of more than $647,000 over four years to support a Washington State University Head Injury Research Program seeking ways to build on the cognitive mental abilities that remain intact following traumatic brain injuries. The project is being done in collaboration with St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute in Spokane.

The grant will support work led by Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe, associate professor of psychology at WSU. Schmitter-Edgecombe is trying to understand what happens after a head injury in terms of cognitive brain functions

Traumatic brain injury is a public health concern that has ramifications not only for the injured individuals, but also for their families, the public health system and the economy. More than 500,000 Americans suffer traumatic head injuries each year. Problems encountered from such injuries vary, but among the most frustrating are difficulties in memory and attention. The majority of those suffering from traumatic brain injury are people in the prime of their vocational productivity.

Despite decades of work in the area of cognitive rehabilitation, a recent report by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, a public health service agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, suggests only limited progress has been made in assisting survivors of traumatic brain injury in the recovery of their cognitive skills.

Schmitter-Edgecombe said she believes the report findings result in part because there is currently no empirically supported theory about cognitive recovery from traumatic brain injury that can be used to guide intervention strategies. Her current research work is intended to provide better scientific evidence to guide cognitive remediation by more fully characterizing the potential early learning mechanisms of brain injury patients. The tests are repeated several times during the first year of recovery and will be compared to functional outcome.

Much of Schmitter-Edgecombe’s work is geared toward trying to understand what remains intact after traumatic brain injury and how those intact abilities can be used to create better remediation procedures. Participants in the research complete brain teasers, computerized tasks, and paper and pencil tasks that assess different aspects of memory, attention and intelligence.

Most of the participants enrolled in Schmitter-Edgecombe’s research program have endured coma for more than 24 hours and have suffered “post-traumatic amnesia,” a condition in which the person does not remember things on a daily basis, for at least a week. Persons who suffer a head injury so severe have considerable diffuse injury in the brain. Typically, they are left with some residual difficulties.

Some traumatic brain injury survivors make amazing recoveries, said Schmitter-Edgecombe. Many are left with some cognitive difficulties, which often include problems with memory and attention.

“If restitution of more automatic brain functions occurs early in recovery, then training techniques that tap into residual automatic skills or capitalize on processes that can be made automatic through practice could prove vital for early interventions, facilitating recovery and improving the ultimate cognitive outcome,” she said.

“Furthermore, an understanding of the recovery patterns of such automatic processes and their relation to functional outcome could help refine models for predicting rehabilitative gains,” Schmitter-Edgecombe said.

Schmitter-Edgecombe has been conducting research with persons who have suffered head injuries as a result of motor vehicle accidents or falls at WSU for the past 10 years. Persons interested in obtaining additional information or participating in the research can call the Head Injury Research Program message line at 335-4033.

The grant award from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke covers the period from 2004 to 2007 and amounts to more than $155,000 in each of those years.