Alcohol Consumption Does not Impede Recovery from Mild to Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury

To examine the effect of pre-injury alcohol use, acute alcohol intoxication, and post-injury alcohol use on outcome from mild to moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Prospective inception cohort of patients who presented to the Emergency Department with mild to moderate TBI and had a blood alcohol level (BAL) taken for clinical purposes. Those who completed the 1-year outcome assessment were eligible for this study (N=91). Outcomes of interest were the count of post-concussion symptoms (British Columbia Post-Concussion Symptom Inventory), low neuropsychological test scores (Neuropsychological Assessment Battery), and abnormal regions of interest on diffusion tensor imaging (low fractional anisotropy). The main predictors were pre-injury alcohol consumption (Cognitive Lifetime Drinking History interview), BAL, and post-injury alcohol use.

The alcohol use variables were moderately to strongly inter-correlated. None of the alcohol use variables (whether continuous or categorical) were related to 1-year TBI outcomes in generalized linear modeling. Participants in this cohort generally had a good clinical outcome, regardless of their pre-, peri-, and post-injury alcohol use.

Alcohol may not significantly alter long-term outcome from mild to moderate TBI. (JINS, 2016, 22, 816-827).