Cognitive recovery during the first year after severe blunt head injury

Cognitive recovery was examined in 24 severe closed head injured patients tested at 3, 6 and 12 months after injury, and 12 patients tested, in addition, at one month. A retested non-head injured control group was used, and where appropriate, alternative test forms were employed to control for practice effects. Tests of intellectual, perceptual/constructional skills, linguistic and memory functions were used, showing that by 12 months the only statistically significant differences between head injured and control patients were on learning and constructional tasks. Individual patients showed widely varying recovery patterns which made prediction of recovery difficult.