Why evaluate one-week-delayed verbal recall in patients with severe traumatic brain injury?

The aim of this study was to propose new measures to evaluate memory processes in patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). In this purpose, we analyzed learning and consolidation processes depending on own patient's performance during a memory test.

One-week Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test - word version (1W-FCSRT-word), which special feature relies on a 30-min and a 1-week-delayed recall after encoding, was administered to a group of 43 patients with severe TBI (age range from 20 to 54 years) and a group of neurologically healthy volunteers matched for age and gender.

Patients performed worse than healthy volunteers for the learning score. Their forgetting percentage was above healthy volunteers' performance and difference between the two groups increased with the delay from the learning phase.

In patients with severe TBI, our results underlined an altered learning and an impairment of long-term consolidation. It is crucial to detect these deficits in the aim to highlight, with a better accuracy, these patients' memory complaints and to propose a better professional rehabilitation.