It Is All in the Head: Clinical Register for Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury: TBI Register

Background: Every year approximately 280,000 people suffer from traumatic brain injury in Germany. About 72,000 children and adolescents are affected, which is a very high proportion. The majority of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) suffer from permanent disabilities as a consequence of this injury. The likelihood of experiencing a TBI is twice as high for boys than for girls. This gender difference becomes more marked with increasing age, presumably due to the gender-specific propensity to risk taking in sports and leisure activities. Whether or not gender-specific factors also influence the outcome regarding mortality and neurocognitive functions or rehabilitation potential has not yet been adequately investigated in Germany. In emergency care, there are also deficits in the coordination of processes across all sectors and in secondary treatment (e.g., by general practitioners and in [early] rehabilitation) which leads to duplication of examinations and treatment. There is currently a lack of systematic documentation of individual cases of medium and severe TBI on different levels of care. Method: Detailed data on accident mechanism, lesions, laboratory parameters and functional deficits and their course are recorded anonymously and analyzed in the TBI Register of the University Clinic Munster in cooperation with partners from the Emergency Medical Care (UKM), Early Rehabilitation (Clemenshospital Munster), continued rehabilitation (Helios Clinic Hattingen), and coordinators of aftercare (Centre for out-patient rehabilitation Munster, Pediatric Neurological Aid, Sociopediatric Centres, NRW). The project is funded by the Ministry for Health, Equality, Care, and Aging of the State of North-Rhine Westphalia as part of the “IuK & Gender Med. NRW” competition. Objectives: Analysis of register data are of prime importance for the evaluation of prevention measures and provides an information basis for optimizing patient care. The structure and process quality along the existing treatment chain including interfaces between emergency treatment and rehabilitation facilities and secondary care are mapped to optimize the quality of TBI patient care.