The late neurological, psychological, and social aspects of severe traumatic coma

Abstract

Thirty patients who had survived a heavy head trauma and a post-traumatic coma, lasting for more than one week, were investigated 8 to 14 years after the trauma. The patients have been followed up from a social, psychological, and neurological point of view. Fifty per cent of these patients are considered to be well rehabilitated. All the investigated patients showed slight to severe reduction in mental capacity. Eighty per cent of the patients had neurological defects which were not as important with respect to social rehabilitation as was the mental capacity reduction.