Zakzanis Konstantine K, Grimes Kyrsten M, Uzzaman Sarah, Schmuckler Mark A
a Department of Psychology , University of Toronto Scarborough , Toronto , ON , Canada.
Brain Inj. 2016;30(8):986-92. doi: 10.3109/02699052.2016.1147077. Epub 2016 Apr 25.
Prospection is the ability to plan ahead by creating a series of intentions and sequential steps to achieve a particular goal. The current study examined whether prospection was compromised in patients who had sustained a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and who claimed to be disabled because of their chronic cognitive impairment, as operationalized by an inability to achieve goals (e.g. return to work) well after their expected recovery.
This study employed the Tower of London (TOL) to measure prospection and compared two groups of patients who sustained a mTBI who both presented with cognitive impairment, but were or were not disabled in terms of their real world functioning (as defined by their instrumental activities of daily living, IADLs).
The results revealed that the TOL could reliably discriminate between these two groups. In subsequent structural equation modelling, TOL scores were used to create a prospection model that was able to predict IADLs functioning.
This study demonstrates that prospection is a critical component of one's ability to function independently following the onset of a mTBI when chronic cognitive impairment is evident and that clinicians should routinely investigate prospection in this context.
前瞻性是指通过制定一系列意图和连续步骤来提前规划以实现特定目标的能力。本研究调查了轻度创伤性脑损伤（mTBI）患者且因慢性认知障碍而声称残疾（通过在预期康复后仍无法很好地实现目标，如重返工作岗位来衡量）的患者，其前瞻性是否受损。
本研究采用伦敦塔任务（TOL）来测量前瞻性，并比较了两组均患有mTBI且存在认知障碍但在现实世界功能方面（根据其日常生活工具性活动，IADLs定义）是否残疾的患者。
结果显示TOL能够可靠地区分这两组患者。在随后的结构方程模型中，TOL分数被用于创建一个能够预测IADLs功能的前瞻性模型。
本研究表明，当前瞻性受损且慢性认知障碍明显时，前瞻性是mTBI发作后个体独立功能的关键组成部分，临床医生应在此背景下常规调查前瞻性。
