Improving Traumatic Brain Injury Rehab Care With Comm Health Services: a Research Project Within the TBI Model System

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU)

Status and phase: Enrolling; Early Phase 1

Conditions: Traumatic Brain Injury

Treatments: Other: Standard of Care; Other: Experimental

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT06188364

HM20027800

Details and patient eligibility

About

TBI rehabilitation care transitions refer to the processes of preparing patients, families, and community-based healthcare providers for the patient's passage from inpatient rehabilitation to the home and community or to another level of care. Persons with TBI have heterogenous neurological impairment (cognitive and behavioral foremost, along with motor, sensory, and balance), that limits their functional independence and participation, and increases their risk for secondary medical conditions, injuries, rehospitalizations and early mortality

Full description

Once people with TBI and their care partners enter the post-acute care landscape, they must navigate fragmented health care systems, interact with providers who may be unfamiliar with TBI, and discover their own services and supports. Inpatient rehabilitation provides high levels of structure and professional support that are impossible to replicate when constructing a home environment to independently manage day-to-day care. Once home, the person with TBI's physical, cognitive, behavioral, and medical needs can easily overwhelm even the most committed care partners. Community health workers (CHWs) through a combination of care coordination, advocacy, and direct service delivery, have the potential to address TBI care partners' needs, particularly those from low income and/or traditionally underserved minority groups. CHWs are well-suited to fill resource gaps that TBI care partners have difficulty finding, including: (1) finding diagnostic, treatment, and social services; (2) assisting with referrals; (3) providing health education and motivational interviewing to support behavioral health change; (4) collecting and managing clinical data; (5) facilitating productive relationships between health services and communities, and (6) offering psychosocial support.

Enrollment: 126 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Participants must be adults (age 18 or older).
• Must be primary person responsible for supervision/care needs of person with TBI post-IRF discharge.
• The person with TBI must have been admitted to the Brain Injury Service Unit at SAI.
• If the care partner does not live in the same residence as the person with TBI, they must provide multiple daily check-ins on day-to-day care.
• Must agree to use mHealth (texts, calls) and possess or be eligible to acquire a smart phone.

Exclusion criteria

• Any severe cognitive impairment that precludes the ability to provide informed consent or safely function as the care partner for a vulnerable adult with TBI.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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126 participants in 2 patient groups

Standard of Care

Other group

Description:

Transition Supports and Services (USS) that prepare care partners of persons with TBI for post-rehabilitation discharge

Treatment:

Other: Standard of Care

Experimental

Experimental group

Description:

USS supplemented with community health services delivered by a certified CHW (CHW+USS) for care partners

Treatment:

Other: Experimental