Procedural Memory During Posttraumatic Amnesia in Survivors of Severe Closed Head Injury

Implicit and Explicit Memory in Children with Traumatic Brain Injury

“…This indicates that implicit memory, as measured by priming of visual stimuli, is preserved in children and adolescents with severe long-term TBI. This finding is consistent with that reported in the adult TBI literature, that is, implicit memory is preserved after TBI (Ewert et al, 1989;Shum et al, 1996). The preservation of implicit memory after TBI can be explained in terms of the cortical area responsible for implicit memory and the neuropathological process of TBI.…”

“…To our knowledge, this is the first study to report such a finding. Although the preservation of implicit memory after TBI has been reported in studies in the adult literature (e.g., Ewert et al, 1989;Shum et al, 1996), it cannot be assumed, based on the findings of these studies, that implicit memory will also be preserved after TBI in children and adolescents. This is because, as pointed out earlier, the impact of TBI on the developing brain of a child or adolescent might be different from that of an adult brain (Baron et al, 1995).…”

“…Ewert, Levin, Watson, and Kalisky (1989) used procedural learning as an index of implicit memory and compared 16 adults with severe TBI to matched controls on multiple implicit memory tasks (viz., mirror reading, maze learning, pursuit rotor task) and multiple explicit memory tasks (viz., word recognition, a declarative memory questionnaire). They reported that individuals with TBI were impaired on explicit memory tasks but they showed learning across sessions on all implicit memory tasks.…”

Prediction of global outcome with acute neuropsychological testing following closed-head injury

“…Early testing of patients while they are in PTA is possible even with severely head-injured patients, given that the tests are relatively simple. This has been demonstrated by researchers in the past (Ewert et al, 1989;Fodor, 1972;Levin et al, 1988b;Meyers & Levin, 1992;Ruesch & Moore, 1943) and more recently by Hannay et al (1994). Such assessments can be important for planning individualized rehabilitation regimens and for the projection of outcome data for head-injured patients discharged from hospital care before clearing PTA.…”

“…Since this pioneering effort, relatively little has been done to study the validity and utility of neuropsychological testing during the early stages of recovery following head injury (Ewert et al, 1989;Fodor, 1972;Meyers & Levin, 1992). This paucity of research may stem from the commonly held belief that neuropsychological testing during early recovery from head injury, especially during PTA, is not possible because of pervasive arousal and attentional problems in the population (Stuss & Buckle, 1992).…”