Management of auditory hallucinations as a sequela of traumatic brain injury: a case report and a relevant literature review.

A patient with progressively worsening auditory hallucinations and 30-year history of traumatic brain injury (TBI) was reported. To formulate a comprehensive diagnostic and treatment approach to patients with auditory sensory disturbances and other neuropsychiatric sequela of a TBI, an electronic search of the major behavioral science databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, Medline) and a textbook review were conducted to retrieve studies detailing the clinical characteristics, biological mechanisms, and therapeutic approaches to post-TBI psychosis. Additional references were incorporated from the bibliographies of the retrieved articles. Although infrequent, auditory hallucinations is a debilitating complication of TBI that can manifest itself 4-5 years after the occurrence of TBI. Because the age range of TBI survivors is 15-24 years, and the chance of developing post-TBI psychosis is reported to be up to 20%, this chronic neuropsychiatric complication and the available treatment options warrant close scrutiny from the clinical and the biomedical research community. Our case report and literature review demonstrates a clear need for a large, well-designed randomized trials to compare properties and efficacies of different, available, and promising pharmacotherapy agents for the treatment of post-TBI psychosis.