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Evaluating the Limitations of Post-Traumatic Amnesia Essay

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Evaluating the Limitations of Post-traumatic Amnesia as a Severity Scale Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) account to a third (30.5%) of all injury-related deaths in the U.S. with an estimated 1.7 million individuals sustaining TBI each year (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010). Classifications of brain injury (e.g., mild, moderate and severe) is mostly done using the Glasgow coma scale (GCS) which has gained broad acceptance for the assessment of the severity of brain damage (Bauer & Fritz, 2004). Recent studies suggest that almost all patients with moderate or severe TBI have a period of recovery during which they are responsive but confused. This state is commonly referred to as the post-traumatic amnesia. Post-traumatic …show more content…

In addition, they also assess the magnitude of the brain injury through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI; Wilson et al., 1993). The data in this study support earlier research connoting that patients have short coma but report prolonged PTA. They found that patients showed substantially more extensive hemispheric damage when patients with perpetuated PTA (>7 days) and short coma (<6 hours) when compared in the acute stage of MRI. Researchers conclude that although both coma and PTA are related to brain damage they still reflect disparate patterns of lesions. Thus, PTA assessment remains as a valuable measure by providing additional information concerning the severity of injury (Wilson et al., 1993). The duration of PTA is retrospectively measured by most studies at interview by catechizing the patient about their memories around the time of injury (Greenwood, 1997). Critics pose significant concerns regarding the retrospective method due to the lack of standardized protocol, undocumented prospective measurement of episodic memory, and questionable reliability issues (McMillan, Jongen, & Greenwood, 1996; Tate et al., 2000). One of the issues is that clinicians often rely on the patient’s own judgment and the relatives’ memory for events. Many find this problematic due to the potential contingency of confabulations right after traumatic injury (McMillan et al., 2012). In addition, concerns were

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