The use of Functional Capacity Scale in the Assessment of Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury — Multicenter Studies

Abstract

Introduction. One of the most serious life and health hazards of a modern man are injuries, one of which is traumatic brain injury (TBI). Among functional scales that are most commonly used for the assessment of the condition of a patient after TBI we can distinguish the Modified Rankin Scale, Disability Rating Scale (DRS), Barthel Index, Functional Independence Measure (FIM), Glasgow Outcome Scale and Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOSE).Aim. The main aim of this work was to present Functional Capacity Scale in the assessment of patients after traumatic brain injury.Material and Methods. In the multicenter studies, there were 159 patients examined. They were hospitalized in neurosurgical wards in Bydgoszcz, Lublin and Wroclaw due to traumatic brain injury. The research was based on twofold assessment (on the day of admission — assessment 1 and discharge — assessment 2) of the condition of a patient after traumatic brain injury with the use of standardized research tools such as Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), Functional Capacity Scale (FCS) and Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS). The method used was direct observation with measurement.Results. The average result of functional capacity in FCS was 34,41 points (71.7%) on the day of admission, and 41,87 points (87.2%) on the day of discharge. After analyzing the differences between the FCS results of men and women, there was no difference between gender groups that would be statistically significant (p>0.05) both on the day of admission and discharge. The age groups remained in statistically significant, low correlation with the results of FCS on the day of admission (R=0.261; p=0.001) and were on the edge of significance (R=0.140; p=0.088) on the day of discharge. The place of residence did not differentiate (p>0.05) the functional capacity assessed with FCS. The results of FCS remained in statistically significant correlation with GCS results (p<0.05) both on the day of admission and discharge and GOS (p=0.000) results on the day of discharge.Conclusions. The FCS scale, suggested for functional assessment of patients with traumatic brain injury, is a tool that appropriately recognizes the functional condition of a patient with traumatic brain injury. It substantially correlates with GCS and GOS, which denotes that its construction and prognostic features are accurate. (JNNN 2014;3(4):175–182)