Cognitive Rehabilitation in Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury (CORE-pABI)

St. Olavs Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: Brain Injuries

Treatments: Behavioral: Pediatric Brain Health Workshop; Behavioral: Pediatric Goal Management Training

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03215342

2017/772

Details and patient eligibility

About

Acquired brain injury (e.g., traumatic brain injury, brain tumour, brain infections) is one of the leading causes of death and disability for children and adolescents. Importantly, injuries affecting the brain in childhood or adolescence appear during a time of development when the brain is particularly vulnerable. Thus, pediatric acquired brain injury does not only impact cognitive functions at the time of injury or onset of disease, but also cognitive functions that are yet to develop. Changes in cognitive function, and in particular executive dysfunction due to acquired brain injury, cause significant real-life disability, yet solid evidence in support of executive functioning interventions for children and adolescents is lacking. In the present study different group-based cognitive rehabilitation interventions will be compared. The aim of the study is to investigate if a group-based "brain training" intervention is able to improve executive function in children and adolescents after acquired brain injury. Efficacy will be assessed immediately after intervention, but also six months after the intervention. The project is in line with international research efforts aimed at establishing more knowledge about how children and adolescents with brain injuries respond to cognitive rehabilitation.

Enrollment: 76 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 10 to 18 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, brain tumor or damage by inflammation in the brain
• more than 12 months since injury/illness or more than 12 months since ended cancer therapy
• evidence of executive dysfunction in everyday life

Exclusion criteria

• cognitive, sensory, physical, or language impairment affecting the capacity to attend mainstream school and/or complete the training program
• pre-injury neurological disease or psychiatric disorder
• recently detected brain tumor relapse
• unfit for evaluation of outcome (independent evaluation by 2 investigators)
• not fluent in Norwegian language

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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76 participants in 2 patient groups

pGMT

Experimental group

Description:

Pediatric Goal Management Training

Treatment:

Behavioral: Pediatric Goal Management Training

pBHW

Experimental group

Description:

Pediatric Brain Health Workshop

Treatment:

Behavioral: Pediatric Brain Health Workshop