Prospective Memory in Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM) performance was investigated in a preliminary study of children and adolescents ages 10-19 in 3 groups: individuals with orthopedic injuries (not involving the head) requiring hospitalization (Ortho, N = 15), mild traumatic brain injury (TBI, N = 17), and severe TBI (N = 15). All participants with TBI were at least 5 years postinjury and participants in the Ortho group were at least 3 years postinjury. The PM task involved reporting words presented in blue during a category decision task in which words were presented in several different colors and participants were to determine which of two categories the word belonged. Participants were asked to make their choices as quickly as possible. After a 10- to 15-min intervening computer task in which all words were presented in black letters, a large proportion of participants with mild or severe TBI failed to indicate any blue words when they appeared. After a reminder to perform the PM task was given to all at the same point in the task, PM performance increased in the Ortho and Mild TBI groups, but remained comparably impaired in the Severe TBI group. Reaction time (RT) data indicated that mean RT was slower with increasing TBI severity. Further, there was a significant cost in RT for performing the PM task during the ongoing category decision task for all groups. The cost in terms of slowed RT increased with greater TBI severity.