Citation

Andrews CJ, Reisner AD, Cooper MA. Neural Regen. Res. 2017; 12(9): 1405-1412.

Affiliation

African Centres for Lightning and Electromagnetics Network, Kampala, Uganda.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Neural Regeneration Research, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, P.R. China, Publisher Wolters Kluwer)

DOI

10.4103/1673-5374.215242

PMID

29089977

PMCID

PMC5649452

Abstract

In the past, victims of electrical and lightning injuries have been assessed in a manner lacking a systematic formulation, and against ad hoc criteria, particularly in the area of neuropsychological disability. In this manner patients have, for example, only been partially treated, been poorly or incorrectly diagnosed, and have been denied the full benefit of compensation for their injuries. This paper contains a proposal for diagnostic criteria particularly for the neuropsychological aspects of the post injury syndrome. It pays attention to widely published consistent descriptions of the syndrome, and a new cluster analysis of post electrical injury patients. It formulates a proposal which could be incorporated into future editions of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). The major neuropsychological consequences include neurocognitive dysfunction, and memory subgroup dysfunction, with ongoing consequences, and sometimes including progressive or delayed psychiatric, cognitive, and/or neurological symptoms. The proposed diagnostic criteria insist on a demonstrated context for the injury, both specifying the shock circumstance, and also physical consequences. It allows for a certain delay in onset of symptoms. It recognizes exclusory conditions. The outcome is a proposal for a DSM classification for the post electrical or lightning injury syndrome. This proposal is considered important for grounding patient treatment, and for further treatment trials. Options for treatment in electrical or lightning injury are summarised, and future trials are foreshadowed.

Language: en

Keywords

American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual; electrical injury; injury; lightning injury; neuropsychiatry; neuropsychology