Phineas Re-enGage: Long-Term Psychiatric Follow-Up of Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury

The authors have presented a case of a 14-year-old male who suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. His narrative is derived from follow-up over an interval from 1-week postinjury through 24-year postinjury by virtue of participation in a prospective longitudinal follow-up study. This chapter summarizes his postinjury course from age 14 to 22 years previously published and extends the description of his course to 38 years of age. In contrast to the famous case of Phineas Gage who came to represent the classical poor outcome after traumatic brain injury, we have named him Phineas Re-enGage to emphasize his sustained positive quality of life changes in multiple domains of function that occurred after 11 years of severe postinjury psychiatric, socio-emotional, and occupational dysfunction. The chapter discusses biopsychosocial aspects of outcome of pediatric traumatic brain injury.