TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - Who gets head trauma or recruited in mild traumatic brain injury research?
JO  - Journal of neurotrauma
A1  - Isokuortti, Harri Tapio
A1  - Iverson, Grant L.
A1  - Kataja, Anneli
A1  - Brander, Antti
A1  - Ohman, Juha
A1  - Luoto, Teemu Miikka
SP  - 232
EP  - 241
VL  - 33
IS  - 2
N2  - Mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) is a public health problem. Outcome from MTBI is heterogeneous in part due to pre-injury individual differences that typically are not well described or understood. Pre-injury health characteristics of all consecutive patients (N=3,023) who underwent head CT due to acute head trauma in the emergency department of Tampere University Hospital, Finland between August 2010 and July 2012 were examined. Patients were screened to obtain a sample of working aged adults with no pre-injury medical or mental health problems who had sustained a "pure" MTBI. Of all patients screened, 1,970 (65.2%) fulfilled the MTBI criteria, 370 (12.2%) had a more severe TBI, and 683 (22.6%) had a head trauma without obvious signs of brain injury. Injury-related data and participant-related data (eg. age, sex, diagnosed diseases, and medications) were collected from hospital records. The most common pre-injury diseases were circulatory (39.4-47.0%), neurological (23.7-28.4%), and psychiatric (25.8-27.7%) disorders. Alcohol abuse was present in 18.4-24.3%. The most common medications were for cardiovascular (34.8-36.9%), central nervous system (27.7-30.9%), and blood clotting and anemia indications (21.5-24.6%). Of the screened patients, only 2.1% met all the enrollment criteria. Age, neurological conditions, and psychiatric problems were the most common reasons for exclusion. Most of the patients sustaining a MTBI have some pre-injury diseases or conditions that could affect clinical outcome. By excluding patients with pre-existing conditions, the patients with known risk factors for poor outcome remain poorly studied.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0897-7151
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/neu.2015.3888
ID  - ref1
ER  -