Exploring the Effectiveness of PAC Rehabilitation for the Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury : A Retrospective Study

Abstract

Background: According to a report from the World Health Organization, traumatic brain injury (TBI) will surpass many diseases by 2020 and become the main cause of death and disability. It is estimated that 10 million people are affected by TBI every year, and the burden of death and morbidity disease is imposed on society, making TBI urgent public health and medical problem (Hyder et al., 2007).In Taiwan, for every 100,000 emergency patients, there are 333 patients with traumatic brain injury, and the predominant group is 15-24 years old, and the mortality rate is 9 per 10,000.The survivors caused a lot of troubles in life because of the remaining obstacles, especially health and socio-economic problems (Wang et al., 2012).Therefore, post-acute care (PAC) is immediately given active integrated care during the golden period of post-acute care to restore its function, which will reduce the medical expenses of subsequent rehospitalization and reduce the burden of family and social care. Objective: The purpose of this study was to exploring the effectiveness of post -acute care for the patients with traumatic brain injury. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study that enrolled 168 patients over 18 years of age (inclusive) about before and after PAC. The differences between the before and after receiving PAC were collected about the Barthel Index (ADL), Lawton-Brody IADL Scale (IADL), and EuroQoL-5D(EQ-5D) by using purposive sampling. The Statistics SPSS 25.0 package software was used to test the Paired Samples t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, Chi-square Test for statistical analysis. Results: The results showed that this study predicts that the functional recovery of patients with traumatic brain injury receiving PAC treatment will be effective. The optimal length of hospitalization for rehabilitation was predicted by the Barthel Index(ADL), Lawton-Brody IADL Scale (IADL), and EuroQoL-5D(EQ-5D). Conclusion: The results of this study can confirm that PAC has important effects. This result can be used as a reference for national planning health policies and cross-disciplinary professional design cases and family PAC intervention plans, in order to restore activity functions as soon as possible, improve the quality of life, and reduce the burden of family and social care. Keywords: traumatic brain injury, Functional Status, Post-Acute Care (PAC) , Depression, Physical and mental condition