Clinical and ethical issues concerning medical decision-making capacity (MDC) frequently arise following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Patients with TBI often abruptly experience impairment or loss of MDC at time of injury, and then slowly regain decisional abilities during rehabilitation and recovery. Yet from time of acute injury, and throughout the rehabilitation and recovery period, patients and/or family members must make ongoing and often complex medical treatment decisions. Thus, following TBI, clinicians and hospitals must immediately address whether a patient has MDC and, in cases where MDC has initially been lost, continue to assess over time whether the patient has regained MDC. These circumstances of abrupt initial impairment and subsequent gradual recovery of MDC are unique to TBI and conditions like stroke, and present important clinical and ethical challenges. Yet surprisingly little is currently known empirically about MDC in patients with TBI. The natural history of impairment and recovery of MDC in TBI remains unknown. Clinicians, hospitals, and rehabilitation centers currently need empirical knowledge about MDC to inform and support decisions to permit, restrict or restore TBI patients'decisional autonomy. In addition, little is known about neurocognitive changes in TBI that presumably mediate changes in decisional capacity. Neurocognitive models can clarify the relationship of evolving decisional capacities to measures of cognitive outcome, and identify cognitive markers of decisional capacity in TBI. In this R01 project, we propose to study MDC empirically and longitudinally (baseline, 6 month, 12 month assessments) over a one-year period in a sample of 80 controls and 150 patients with TBI using objective capacity and neuropsychological measures, and also clinician judgments. TBI patients will be stratified (50 mild, 50 moderate, 50 severe) to understand how injury severity affects impairment and recovery of MDC over time.
Aim 1 will investigate initial levels of impairment, rates of improvement, and extent of recovery of consent abilities in TBI patients (stratified by injury severity) over the one year period of spontaneous recovery characteristic of TBI.
Aim 2 will test cross- sectional and longitudinal cognitive models of MDC in TBI patients, and identify cognitive markers of MDC in TBI.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD053074-04
Application #
7880813
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-HOP-E (90))
Program Officer
Ansel, Beth
Project Start
2007-07-05
Project End
2012-06-30
Budget Start
2010-07-01
Budget End
2011-06-30
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$338,984
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Alabama Birmingham
Department
Neurology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
063690705
City
Birmingham
State
AL
Country
United States
Zip Code
35294
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Gerstenecker, Adam; Martin, Roy; Marson, Daniel C et al. (2016) Introducing demographic corrections for the 10/36 Spatial Recall Test. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 31:406-11
Triebel, Kristen L; Novack, Thomas A; Kennedy, Richard et al. (2016) Neurocognitive Models of Medical Decision-Making Capacity in Traumatic Brain Injury Across Injury Severity. J Head Trauma Rehabil 31:E49-59
Gerstenecker, Adam; Niccolai, Lindsay; Marson, Daniel et al. (2016) Enhancing Medical Decision-Making Evaluations: Introduction of Normative Data for the Capacity to Consent to Treatment Instrument. Assessment 23:232-9
Triebel, Kristen L; Martin, Roy C; Novack, Thomas A et al. (2014) Recovery over 6 months of medical decision-making capacity after traumatic brain injury. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 95:2296-303
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Marson, Daniel C (2013) Clinical and ethical aspects of financial capacity in dementia: a commentary. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry 21:382-90
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Triebel, K L; Martin, R C; Novack, T A et al. (2012) Treatment consent capacity in patients with traumatic brain injury across a range of injury severity. Neurology 78:1472-8

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