Long-term maintenance of gains obtained in postacute rehabilitation by persons with traumatic brain injury

Objective: To investigate maintenance of gains after discharge from a posta cute rehabilitation program. Design: Longitudinal cohort study, with inclus ion based on availability of subjects at three time points. Setting: Compre hensive postacute rehabilitation program in the Southern United States. Par ticipants: Thirty-four persons with medically documented complicated mild t o severe traumatic brain injury; primarily male Caucasians with some colleg e. Main Outcome Measures: Disability Rating Scale and the Community Integra tion Questionnaire completed at admission, discharge. and two follow-up tim e points, Results: Repeated measures analyses, using time from injury to di scharge as a covariate, revealed significant improvements on all measures f rom admission to discharge, with no significant change from discharge to ei ther of the follow-up periods. However, substantial changes were noted in i ndividual cases. Conclusions: The results indicate that gains made by perso ns with traumatic brain injury during postacute rehabilitation are generall y maintained at long-term follow-up, but changes occur in individual cases. Long-term services may help prevent decline in individual cases.