EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING FOLLOWING MILD CLOSED-HEAD INJURY

This study was aimed to identify impaired attentional components in mi ld CHI patients. The CHI features taken into account were age (less th an or equal to 30 vs. >30 years), loss of consciousness (yes vs. no), and time after injury (few days vs. some months). The groups tested we re composed of 26 patients and 26 controls (matched for age, sex and e ducation). Experiment 1 used a dual-task paradigm (Umilta et al., 1999 ), which taps executive functions. The double task-single task differe nce was greater for the CHI group, but only for patients older than 30 years and/or with consciousness loss. Two years after injury, some of these patients were retested: The results showed that this deficit wa s still present. Experiment 2 studied visual selective attention using the Navon (1977) paradigm. In this case, there were no differences be tween patients and controls. The results are discussed with reference to the anterior/posterior attention systems.