Treatment Approaches and Interventions Flashcards

Which of the following is an evidence-based intervention for improving social communication skills in TBI survivors?

Answer: Social communication skills training groups

Structured social communication skills training groups provide practice, feedback, and generalization opportunities for pragmatic language deficits after TBI.

A TBI survivor has persistent post-traumatic headaches unresponsive to over-the-counter analgesics. Overuse of these medications may lead to:

Answer: Medication overuse headache (rebound headache)

Frequent use of analgesics for post-traumatic headache can paradoxically cause medication overuse headache, necessitating a carefully managed withdrawal.

The Neurofunctional Approach to occupational therapy after TBI emphasizes:

Answer: Training functional tasks in real-life environments using repetition and routine

The Neurofunctional Approach focuses on practicing actual functional tasks in naturalistic environments to build automaticity and habit, bypassing impaired cognitive processes.

Which factor most significantly limits the generalizability of skills learned during TBI rehabilitation to real-world settings?

Answer: Transfer-appropriate processing failure (context dependency)

Skills are most easily retrieved in the context in which they were learned; training in clinical settings may not transfer to community environments without deliberate generalization strategies.

For a TBI survivor with disorders of consciousness (DOC), which intervention has the strongest evidence for promoting recovery of consciousness?

Answer: Amantadine pharmacotherapy

The Giacino et al. (2012) multicenter RCT demonstrated that amantadine accelerates recovery of consciousness and functional outcomes in minimally conscious and vegetative states.

Family education in TBI rehabilitation is considered essential primarily because:

Answer: Caregiver knowledge and behavior significantly impact survivor outcomes and reduce caregiver burden

Well-informed caregivers apply consistent strategies, support generalization of rehabilitation gains, and experience lower burden, all of which improve survivor outcomes.

A TBI patient with severe anosognosia (lack of self-awareness of deficits) is LEAST likely to benefit from which intervention approach without modifications?

Answer: Compensation-based strategies relying on patient insight

Compensation-based strategies require the patient to recognize and accept their deficits; anosognosia undermines this self-awareness, making these strategies ineffective without first addressing awareness.