Fig. 1.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
| Criteria | NO. | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Inclusion criteria | 1 | Types of studies: observational, interventional, retrospective, and case studies |
| 2 | Age: 18–65 | |
| 3 | Cognitive impairments due to acute traumatic peripheral lesions | |
| 4 | Full text available in English | |
| Exclusion criteria | 1 | Animal studies |
| 2 | Trauma or disease in the central nervous system | |
| 3 | Chronic injuries without a definite timepoint of trauma | |
| 4 | Congenital or developing diseases | |
| 5 | Cognitive impairments due to aging, psychological, emotional problems, or substance addiction | |
| 6 | Damage to sight, hearing, smell or taste | |
| 7 | Visceral nociception or burn | |
| 8 | Study protocols | |
Distribution of Domains Evaluated
| NO. | Domain | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | HLCF (b164) | 18 |
| 2 | Memory (b144) | 14 |
| 3 | Attention (b140) | 11 |
| 4 | Psychomotor (b147) | 4 |
| 5 | Language (b167) | 3 |
| 6 | Global (ICF-ch1) | 2 |
| 7 | Basic learning (d130–159) | 1 |
| 8 | Consciousness (B110) | 1 |
| 9 | Perceptual (b156) | 1 |
| Total | 55 | |
Summary data from the studies included in the present scoping review of cognition and peripheral trauma
| Lead author | Year | Sample size | Country | Aims | Key findings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coppieters [31] | 2017 | 32 | Belgium | To examine differences in disability, cognitive impairments, and central sensitization between women with traumatic and idiopathic (nontraumatic) neck pain and women who were healthy. |
|
| Ickmans [32] | 2016 | 27 | Belgium | To examine postexercise cognitive performance in people with chronic Whiplash-Associated Disorders. | People with whiplash-associated disorders displayed significantly lower scores on attention and psychomotor, compared with healthy controls. |
| Jun-Tao [33] | 2016 | 15 | China | To explore the higher-level brain functional abnormality pattern of BPI patients from a large-scale network function connectivity dimension in right-handed BPI patients. | Brain functional disturbance in BPI patients extends in the executive-control network, as revealed by functional MRI analysis, and this may lead to cognitive alterations in complex tasks post BPI. |
| Richards [34] | 2011 | 109 | USA | To examine the association between reamed IMN and long-term cognitive impairment in trauma intensive care unit survivors. | Fracture fixation with a reamed IMN is associated with cognitive impairment of Global (ICF-ch1), memory, attention, HLCF in multiple trauma patients at one year post injury. |
| Chen [35] | 2008 | 6 | China | To investigate the brain regions involved in chronic spontaneous pain due to BPA, to determine the glucose metabolic changes in patients with pain due to BPA. | Brain areas involved in attention and internal modulation of pain had significant glucose metabolism decreases in patients with BPA. |
| Antepohl [36] | 2003 | 30 | Sweden | To verify the occurrence of cognitive impairments in patients with WAD and to provide a more detailed description of the impairment character and context. | Compared to healthy controls, patients with whiplash-associated disorder performed worse in psychomotor and memory. |
| Bosma [37] | 2002 | 31 | Netherlands | To investigate underlying mechanisms of cognitive impairments in whiplash syndrome. | Patients with whiplash performed worse on memory and attention tasks compared with the control group. |
| Kessels [22] | 1998 | 24 | Netherlands | To compare attentional dysfunctions in whiplash patients with age-matched controls. | Whiplash patients had lower scores on the attention identified by PASAT. |
| Smed [38] | 1997 | 29 | Denmark | To address which factors lead to the chronic syndrome of whiplash injury. | Patients with whiplash injury showed deficiencies in the score of Cognitive Function Scan. The performances of basic learning of the whiplash patients coping with stressful life events in addition to the accident were significantly worse than patients without, whereas memory was unaffected. |
| Radanov [23] | 1992 | 51 | Switzerland | To assess cognitive functions after soft tissue injury of the cervical spine. |
|
Cognitive assessment tools used in these studies
| NO. | Scale | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trail Making Test | 3 |
| 2 | Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (PASAT) | 3 |
| 3 | Stroop Test | 2 |
| 4 | Rey Osterreith Complex Figure Test | 2 |
| 5 | Mini Mental State Exam | 2 |
| 6 | Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test | 1 |
| 7 | Psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) | 1 |
| 8 | Digit Symbol Coding | 1 |
| 9 | FAS Test | 1 |
| 10 | Verbal Reaction time task | 1 |
| 11 | Spatial Reaction time task | 1 |
| 12 | Reading Span Task | 1 |
| 13 | Matrix Test | 1 |
| 14 | Dutch adaptation of the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) | 1 |
| 15 | Bourdon-Wiersma cancellation task | 1 |
| 16 | Cognitive Function Scanner (CFS) | 1 |
| 17 | Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) | 1 |
| 18 | Number connection Test | 1 |
| 19 | Drawings and Rey Complex Figure | 1 |
| 20 | Bourdon – Wiersma Test | 1 |
| Total | 33 | |
Summary of study participants pooled data grouped into three trauma/lesion types
| Trauma/lesion | Number of participants | Gender | Mean age | Earliest cognitive assessment time point post injury | Latest cognitive assessment time point post injury | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| male | female | |||||
| Soft tissue injury | 245 | 79 | 166 | 36.6 | 1 month | 444 months |
| a. Whiplash injury | 173 | 45 | 128 | 37.0 | 1 month | 444 months |
| b. Brachial plexus injury | 21 | 19 | 2 | 32.9 | 1 month | 240 months |
| c. Soft tissue injury around cervical spine | 51 | 15 | 36 | 36.9 | * | * |
| Fracture | 109 | 62 | 47 | 42.7 | 12 months | 12 months |
| Total | 354 | 141 | 213 | 38.5 | ||