[Subjective complaints in patients after a closed head injury]

Patients who suffered a closed head injury (CHI) are frequently with various subjective complaints: headache, forgetfulness, irritability, poor concentration, etc. Such complaints were observed in patients with both severe and mild CHI. The aim of this study was to establish the degree of the subjective complaints in the group of 40 patients who continuously expressed the complaints even in the follow-up period from 6 to 47 months after the injury. Special questionnaire adopted for this category of patients was used for the registration of their complaints. The severity of CHI was estimated upon the classification of the initial impaired consciousness by Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and upon the duration of post-traumatic amnesia (PTA), while the recovery was estimated upon the five-levels scale of return to work (RTW). The most frequent disturbances were: forgetfulness (4%), irritability (40%) and poor concentration (35%). The analyses indicated the occurrence of two groups of symptoms, and the explanation for their most probable genesis was given.