Characteristics of prospective memory impairments in patients with severe traumatic brain injury during recovery stage

Abstract

To explore the characteristics of time-based prospective memory (TBPM) and event-based prospective memory (EBPM) in patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) during recovery stage. A total of 20 patients with severe TBI were recruited along with another 20 age, gender and education-matched healthy volunteers. The Chinese version of Cambridge Prospective Memory Test was used to assess the TBPM and EBPM characteristics. The TBPM score, EBPM score, time monitoring frequency, cue finding frequency, and whether or not the participants choose to take notes were recorded and compared between patients and controls. The TBPM and EBPM scores (9.05 ± 3.59, 11.35 ± 2.25 respectively) of TBI patients were lower than that of controls (14.95 ± 2.09, 16.45 ± 1.54, respectively) (P < 0.05). Compared with the controls, time monitoring frequency of the patients[times] was less (1 (1, 2) vs 4 (3, 5.25) times) (P < 0.05); cue discovery frequency also less (2 (2, 3) vs 5 (4.25, 5) times). And there were fewer note-taking subjects in TBI group (P < 0.05). With deficits in both the time- and event-based prospective memory, the TBI patients have difficulty of finding time or event cue during interference and auxiliary memory strategy is rarely utilized to realize the prospective memory tasks.