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The current issue of PLoS Medicine magazine, a Public Library of Science journal, includes an article detailing the results of research into traumatic brain injury diagnoses.
This research looks at the possibility of a prognostic model that can give an indication of the sufferer's state of health six months after a personal injury to the brain. Through analysis of the data provided by more than eight thousand patients in the IMPACT database, the researchers have discovered that there are three indicators that can be looked at when a TBI sufferer is admitted.
These are age, the way the pupil reacts, and ability to control movement, all of which are likely to be recorded on admission. A more complex model is also discussed that can use laboratory results of haemoglobin tests and CT scans.
Prognostic models are useful for doctors in making decisions about treatment for their patients. They are also useful for personal injury lawyers, who can use them in compensation claims in which ongoing treatment is likely to be needed, where they may define the payments that will need to be claimed for.
This week's PLoS model has been described by Edinburgh scientists as being useful for "clinical decision making and the counselling of patients' relatives", but they point out that the prognosis will be based on averages and likelihoods, while each individual sufferer of a brain injury may do better or worse than the prognosis suggests.
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