For professionals

Summary

Since 1987, children and young people in a vegetative or low-conscious state after severe brain injury have been treated in the Early Intensive Neurorehabilitation (VIN program) program in the Leijpark Rehabilitation Center in Tilburg. Evaluation research was carried out around the VIN programme in which the focus was on reliably determining the recovery of consciousness, determining the incidence of children and young people with long-term loss of consciousness after traumatic brain injury in the Netherlands and restoring consciousness and long-term functioning of children and young people after inclusion in the VIN programme.

To determine the state of consciousness of people with loss of consciousness after severe brain injury, the Post-Acute Level Of Consciousness scale (paloc-s) was developed and found to be reliable and valid. In total, 42 patients who had suffered severe traumatic brain injury were found in 23 large hospitals
a period of two and a half years and who had not yet regained consciousness after one month. Twelve of them are not included in the VIN program. This number is much less than is usually assumed.

At inclusion in the VIN program, three-quarters of patients were in a vegetative state, and at discharge, a similar percentage were in a low-conscious cohesive state or conscious. On average three years later, it turned out that the patients who showed no recovery during treatment also showed little or no recovery in the long term. The patients who were in a low-conscious cohesive or conscious state upon discharge from the program were found to have achieved a reasonable level of independence.