Abstract
The objective of this study is to identify physical and cognitive disturbances of brain injured patients who have risks of escape from the ward or the hospital. We performed a retrospective study for 140 brain injured patients (107 traumatic brain injuries; 12 cerebrovascular disease cases; 9 brain tumor cases; 5 cerebral anoxia cases; 4 encephalitis cases; 1 brain abscess case; 1 Korsakoff syndrome case; 1 normal pressure hydrocephalus case; 1 frontal/parietal focal resection for refractory epilepsy case) with various impairments. They admitted to our hospital during last one and a half-year for rehabilitative treatment. We performed Functional Independence Measure (FIM) and several neuropsychological tests on admission. The group with high risk (51 cases who actually escaped or tried to escape from their ward or the hospital without permissions) had lower admission cognitive FIM scores than the group of no risk (89 cases who never escape from their ward). The neuropsychological test results, such as Mini-Mental State Examination, Miyake-shiki Memory Test were significantly lower in high risk group than no risk group. The result of this study revealed the characteristics of those who have a risk of escapes. We have to pay attention to prevent escaping in the patients who can walk or drive a wheel chair with disorientation and memory disturbances besides gross cognitive dysfunction by FIM.
