The description of severe traumatic brain injury in light of the ICF classification

Abstract

Purpose: To review on the application of the ICF Classification to assess the person with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and his/her interaction with the environment.

Method: Studies and reviews about the use of ICF in TBI have been included, by searching in Pubmed and in the proceedings of international meetings.

Results: Eleven studies have been identified and classified into three types: (a) application of the classification; (b) single case study; (c) the use of other scales. Some studies are related to the application of ICF checklist. Finally, we analyse the most used ICF codes.

Conclusions: The ICF is a useful tool describes conditions and needs of patients with TBI. A diffuse utilisation could become the key resource for both health professionals and administrators that are in charge of allocating resources to pursue quality of life improvement. The ICF could be applied as a shared language to define health programmes' goals and as system for carrying out epidemiological studies. For this reason, it is desirable to define and validate the ICF Core Sets for TBI to provide a mean to be easily used, comprehensive and universal.