Article

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether or not a battery of neurobehavioral tests, the
Brief Objective Neurobehavioral Detector (BOND), could detect mild traumatic
brain injury (mTBI) among a group of psychiatric inpatients with numerous
substance-related and medical comorbidities. The 16-item BOND is comprised of
neurologic examination tasks and has been shown to correlate with radiologic and
cognitive findings in previous studies. DESIGN: Masked comparison. SETTING:
Inpatient psychiatric unit at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington,
DC. PARTICIPANTS: Patients (N=51) sequentially admitted for suicidal ideation in
the context of various psychiatric disorders. INTERVENTIONS: No intervention.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: BOND total and subtest scores. RESULTS: Forty-three
patients were eligible and analyzed. Twenty-seven had sustained an mTBI in the
distant past, and 16 had never sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) (non-TBI
group). On average, the mTBI group demonstrated a significantly greater number of
abnormal subtests on the BOND (mean, 7.22) than did the non-TBI group (mean,
4.50; P=.003). Although the BOND significantly correlated with the presence of
mTBI, it did not correlate with any of the psychiatric, substance-related, or
medical comorbidities. Multiple regressions indicated that the BOND total score
was not explained by age, posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis, or any
combination of the psychiatric, substance-related, or medical comorbidities. High
rates of sensitivity (70%) and specificity (69%) were found. CONCLUSIONS: The
results of this pilot study suggest that the inexpensive, brief, and objective
BOND instrument may be a useful screening tool for the detection of subtle
neurologic brain abnormalities after mTBI, even in the presence of substantial
comorbidities.
CI - Published by Elsevier Inc.

Langue : ANGLAIS