A computerized version of EBIS evaluation chart and its opportunities in the rehabilitation program of TBI patients

The need of rehabilitation programs for severely traumatic brain injured (TBI) patients is great and is growing, but these programs are long, costly and it would be very useful if we could demonstrate and quantify the benefits of our approaches. We think that scarcity of literature in this field is a consequence of the well known and real difficulty in this kind of investigations (too many variability factors, groups of population not homogeneous, ethical problems for double blind studies and so on). It is our opinion that EBIS Protocol could be a very useful instrument for the evaluation of rehabilitation programs benefits, provided that the protocol is used regularly for a long time after the acute phase and in many different TBI centres: in this way it would be possible to compare and to elaborate data concerning a large number of patients. This instrument could also become an opportunity for a continuous and more coordinated collaboration between rehabilitation centres of different countries. We think that this target is realistic only if we dispose of a commonly accepted computerized version of EBIS Protocol with a data exchange via Internet. Since 1996 we have been using a computerized version of the EBIS protocol for data archivation and follow up of TBI patients treated in our centre. The data bank concerns actually n. 341 TBI patients. Objective of the present research is the presentation of a computerized version of EBIS protocol. This program is freely available and it could contribute to a more common use of this evaluation tool. We thank particularly Prof. Truelle and Prof. Brooks who gave us the permission for the use of EBIS document.