Richard Caton was the first to report the electrical activity from brain in animal, in as early as 1875. However, it took more than 50 yeas, when Hans Berger successfully recorded electrical activity from the human brain using surface scalp electrodes in 1929. In 1935, Gibbs, Davis and Lennox discovered the 3Hz spike-wave bursts in association with absence (petit mal) seizure, and in 1936 focal spike in epilepsy was found by Jasper and focal slowing was noted in brain tumor by Walter. Since, the EEG has brought tremendous contributions to the fields of clinical neurology and neurophysiology. As a clinical diagnostic tool, the EEG has provided information for functional as well as anatomical (structural) brain disturbances. As a functional diagnosis, the EEG is superior to other function tests such as PET, SPECT or functional MRI because of its excellent temporal resolution representing moment to moment changes in the level of consciousness. However, the progress has been hampered due to difficulty in quantifying EEG data because of its extreme dynamics and variability, which perhaps reflects complex yet unknown brain functions. This difficulty will be overcome by improved quantification methods and statistical measures using various computer applications including topographic mapping, power spectrum analysis, covariance, and correlation or coherence function. By solving these problems, EEG will become important tool for understanding the functional anatomy of brain and will fulfill Berger's dream, “EEG is a window of human mind”.

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The prognosis of 12 children (11 boys, 1 girl) with diffuse axonal injury (DAI) were investigated in this study. The cause of injuries was traffic accident in all cases. The ages of children at the injured episode were between 2 to 13 years, and the severity of DAI was classified as follows; mild type 1 case, moderate type 3 cases, and severe type 8 cases. Ten cases showed physical disabilities such as ataxia 5 cases, hemiplegia 4 cases, and two cases were associated with spinal cord injury. All of the cases showed mental disabilities, i. e., higher cortical dysfunction 12 cases, mental retardation 3 cases and others. Intelligence quotient (IQ) and functional independence measure (FIM) improved rapidly in the first year after the injury. At present, average IQ was 81.8, and average FIM score was 104. All cases, however, still complained some school life problems such as learning difficulties 10 cases, attention deficit 5 cases, interpersonal problems 3 cases. There were many trials to treat their problems; supplementary lessons, outpatients' rehabilitation training, changing the classes from ordinary to special ones, reconstructions of school buildings etc. It is important for the children with DAI to be educated with special programs considering the higher cortical dysfunction and to be cared under cooperation among rehabilitation centers, schools and their homes

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An optimal design is determined by your research question or hypothesis to be confirmed. Since rehabilitation is a type of intervention, a double-blind randomized controlled trial may be the most appropriate, however, it is not always feasible in practice mainly due to ethical reasons. Therefore, a researcher should have a good knowledge of a variety of research designs including observational studies. Research design includes the establishment of a research protocol that should be written before the project starts. The purpose, design, number and type of subjects, variables to be measured or observed, main outcome measures, and statistical methods to be used should be considered in preparation for writing a protocol, while bias and chance of error should be minimized as much as possible. Finally, the study should only be initiated having solved any related explicit or implicit problems.

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