Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, and 10 other health care facilities in the United States and Canada have been awarded a $4.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to identify which rehabilitation therapies, or combination of therapies, can best help victims of traumatic brain injuries.
“Our aim in this study is to isolate individual components of the range of therapies we use to treat our patients and determine how, and to what degree, each is associated with improved function,” says James Young, MD, chairman of the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Rush and an internationally recognized expert in the treatment of brain injuries.
The 5-year study will collect the records of more than 2,300 patients who have suffered moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries, including detailed demographic, diagnostic, and clinical profiles of each patient. Daily logs will be kept of the individually tailored treatment programs the patients undergo in physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech/language therapy, physiatry (physical medicine), psychology/psychiatry, and social support. Outcomes will be catalogued and correlated with both the patients’ characteristics and therapeutic interventions.
The researchers will then analyze the data to determine which therapies were the most successful in improving outcomes for patients with different types and severities of traumatic brain injuries.
Patients will also be followed for a full year after being discharged to assess their quality of life, including whether they were able to live independently, drive a vehicle, and participate in daily activities.
The analysis will involve a research methodology called practice-based evidence for clinical practice improvement, which relies on data from routine clinical practice to determine what works for whom, when, and at what cost. The methodology has been used successfully to improve treatment for stroke.
Research to date has done little to help identify the best treatments for the range of symptoms. Randomized clinical trials of rehabilitation therapies, for example, typically evaluate only specific treatments for a select group of patients. Results are not general enough to apply to the whole population of traumatic brain injury patients.
By isolating individual components of therapy as applied to patients with different degrees of traumatic brain injuries, the researchers expect to be able to prescribe best practices for rehabilitation, raising the standard of treatment in facilities nationwide.
“From the extraordinary wealth of data we’ll collect in this 5-year analysis, we will be able to offer clinicians the information that can help them evaluate their current treatment practices and select therapies that are most likely to help their patients,” Young said. “This is medicine at its best: treatment based on the results of years of clinical practice.”
[Source: Newswise]
