Impact of skull fracture on neuropsychological functioning following closed head injury

Abstract

The role of skull facture in affecting morbidity following closed head injury (CHI) has received a significant amount of attention from researchers. While there is fairly widespread agreement that skull fractures increase the risk of complications such as haematoma, it us unclear whether the presence of skull fracture has predictive value in terms of the neuropsychological sequelae of CHI. The purpose of the current study was to further investigate the role of skull fracture in predicting neuropsychological dysfunction following CHI. Subjects included patients admitted to the trauma service of a large teaching hospital who were suspected of having suffered CHI. All patients completed neuropsychological testing and had normal computerized tomography (CT) scans. Patients who had suffered skull fracture were compared to those who had not suffered skull fracture on selected neuropsychological measures. Groups did not differ in terms of CHI severity as assessed by the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). Multivariate analysis of variance revealed that the groups did differ in terms of neuropsychological functioning. Results are interpreted as suggesting that the presence of a skull fracture is predictive of additional neuropsychological dysfunction, even in the absence of intracranial pathology or more severe disturbance of consciousness on the GCS.