scholarly journals Word-finding strategies in closed head injured adults

Author(s):  
Juleen Kleiman ◽  
Lesley Bucke

Word-finding difficulties are a common and prominent language deficit following closed head injury. The word-finding difficulties of three closed head injured patients were investigated within the framework of compensatory strategies using Teicher's Taxonomy of Word-Finding Strategies (Teicher, 1986). The word-finding difficulties were evaluated during procedural discourse and two confrontation naming conditions. Each subject's communicative competence and language ability was determined. Results indicated that all subjects employed a wide range of strategies, particularly during confrontation naming, but with differential effectiveness. A relationship was noted between the strategy's effectiveness and the subject's pragmatic ability. The results are discussed in the light of the existing literature on head injury. The theoretical and clinical implications are considered.

1993 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Correll ◽  
Shirley E Brodginski ◽  
Saundra F. Rokosz

WAIS profiles of 50 acute closed head-injured patients were examined and compared with those of 40 psychiatric inpatients. Patients with moderate and severe, but not with mild, head injury differed significantly from the control group on level of subtest performance. There was no significant interaction of group by subtest. The groups also differed significantly on a measure of between-subtest scatter. Discriminant function analysis incorporating measures of within-subtest scatter correctly classified 89% of all subjects. Within the head-injured group Similarities and Block Design scores were elevated, and the Digit Symbol score depressed. These results indicate that closed head-injured patients can be discriminated from psychiatric inpatients on the basis of WAIS performance, but that they do not necessarily show a characteristic WAIS profile. Within-subtest scatter may indicate information-processing deficits.


1978 ◽  
Vol 133 (6) ◽  
pp. 507-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Oddy ◽  
Michael Humphrey ◽  
David Uttley

SummaryAs part of a prospective study of closed head injury, 54 relatives were interviewed within a month of the patient's accident and again six and twelve months later.The degree of stress on the relatives was measured by means of the Wakefield Depression Scale and by interview questions.The worst period of stress for the majority of relatives appeared to be during the first month after the accident. However, the degree of stress appeared to level off by the sixth month and no further diminution was found at twelve months.Stress was apparently mediated by the relatives' perception of personality changes and subjective defects. It was not affected by the severity of the head injury or associated disabilities, nor by whether the patient had resumed work and leisure activities.The nature of the stress is analysed and methods of alleviating it discussed.


1986 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Karpman ◽  
Sandra Wolfe ◽  
James W. Vargo

This study explored the process of the psychological adjustment of 20 head-injured adults and their parents. In-depth interviews were conducted with all participants, then content analyzed using a synthesis of the procedures used by Calaizzi (1978), Collier and Kuiken (1976), and Vargo (1984). The content analysis resulted in 15 themes for the head-injured participants, and 12 for the parent participants. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for head-injured patients and their parents.


Author(s):  
Lesley Irvine ◽  
Marlene Behrmann

The communicative and cognitive deficits of three closed-head injured patients were investigated within the framework of language form, language use, and cognitive ability. A battery of tests was administered and results indicated a degree of cognitive impairment in all subjects. The balance between the language form and language use skills was subject-specific. These findings supported the current view of heterogeneity within the closed-head injured population as well as the view that a language disorder may result from an underlying cognitive deficit. The results are discussed in the light of the existing literature on head injury. The theoretical and clinical implications are considered.


1995 ◽  
Vol 269 (4) ◽  
pp. E636-E641 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Flakoll ◽  
L. S. Wentzel ◽  
S. A. Hyman

Patients with isolated closed-head injuries are characterized by excessive nitrogen loss, hyperglycemia, and increased caloric demand. However, the relative contributions of specific metabolic events such as protein breakdown and synthesis or glucose production and utilization to the physiological changes prevalent during isolated closed-head injury remains unestablished. By use of isotopic dilutions of L-[1-13C]leucine and D-[3-3H]glucose, components of protein and glucose metabolism were examined in patients with isolated closed-head injury (n = 7). Normal overnight-fasted volunteers (n = 8) were also studied as a reference point for comparison. Despite prevailing hyperinsulinemia (29 +/- 5 microU/ml), head-injured patients had elevated plasma leucine concentrations (183 +/- 22 vs. 144 +/- 8 mumol/l), whole body proteolysis (331 +/- 44 vs. 150 +/- 7 mg.kg-1.h-1), protein synthesis (248 +/- 38 vs. 126 +/- 11 mg.kg-1.h-1), and amino acid oxidation (84 +/- 11 vs. 23 +/- 3 mg.kg-1.h-1). Therefore nitrogen loss normally associated with isolated closed-head injury is primarily due to an increase in the rate of whole body proteolysis, with a greater proportion of the resultant amino acids being oxidized for energy. Furthermore, head-injured patients were hyperglycemic (6.7 +/- 0.3 mumol/l) with increased rates of glucose turnover (an estimate of production and utilization) compared with the controls (4.0 +/- 0.7 vs. 2.5 +/- 0.2 mg.kg-1.min-1). Hence, these data suggest that head injury, even in the absence of peripheral trauma, induces a physiological state of accelerated metabolism associated with resistance to insulin action.


Aphasiology ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 877-888 ◽  
Author(s):  
Faye Jordan ◽  
Kylie Ward ◽  
Sue Cremona-meteyard

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 598-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
HARVEY S. LEVIN ◽  
JAMES SONG ◽  
RANDALL S. SCHEIBEL ◽  
JACK M. FLETCHER ◽  
HARRIET HARWARD ◽  
...  

To further investigate the usefulness of 3 purported measures of executive function (EF) in head injured children, we administered the Twenty Questions Test (TQT), Tower of London (TOL), and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) to 151 children who had sustained a closed head injury (CHI) of varying severity about 3 years earlier. In addition, we tested 89 normal controls. Fifty-seven of the patients were included in a longitudinal study that compared performance at 3 months and 36 months. All of the head injured children underwent magnetic resonance imaging for investigational purposes. Severity of CHI, as defined by the lowest Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score, affected performance on all 3 EF measures. Focal lesion volume incremented prediction of performance on TOL and WCST, but not TQT. Moderate intercorrelations of the test variables were obtained. Although all three EF measures depicted changes in performance over 3 years, a ceiling effect detracted from the sensitivity of the TOL to the impact of CHI on development. Implications of the findings for clinical applications are discussed. (JINS, 1997, 3, 598–607.)


1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Skye McDonald

AbstractTwo experiments in which 2 closed-head-injured (CHI) subjects and 12 non-brain-damaged control subjects took part investigated the capacity to comprehend indirect speech acts. In the first experiment, the subjects were required to interpret conventional indirect speech acts. One CHI subject, but not the other, had trouble rejecting the literal meaning. In the second experiment, the subjects were required to interpret the meaning behind two literally conflicting sentences. While the control subjects interpreted these as representing a sarcastic exchange, the CHI subjects were unable to provide an adequate explanation. The results were interpreted in terms of common cognitive deficits after closed head injury.


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