Spatial Navigation Abilities in TBI Survivors

Opportunistic sampling was utilised for the recruitment of participants whereby an invitation to participate in the study was advertised by the “Brain Injury Support (BIS) Services” which is a private organisation which provides specialist cognitive rehabilitation therapy to individuals with brain injury, and “High Beyond C” which is an organisation that facilitates an interactive virtual program for brain injury survivors.
Thirty–eight (n = 38) participants were recruited to the study—fifteen (n = 15) with a history of TBI (mean age = 31.67 ± 12.34 yrs.) and twenty–three participants (n = 23) from the general population to serve as healthy controls (mean age = 32.61 ± 12.59 yrs.).
From the sample of thirty–eight participants that completed the SBSOD scale, a subsample of ten participants from the TBI group (n = 10) and a subsample of thirteen participants from the control group (n = 13) completed the SHQ navigation tasks. Thus, while the participant group remains small, this number is inline previous empirical studies; 14 TBI and 12 controls [23 (link)], TBI and 12 control [2 (link)], and eight TBI and 40 control [24 (link)]. See Table 1 for the demographic characteristics of the participants in the overall sample, as well as the subsamples that completed the SHQ game.
The research conducted in this study was undertaken in concordance with the University of Hertfordshire Health, Science, Engineering and Technology Ethics Committee with Delegated Authority. The ethics protocol number for this study was LMS/PGT/UH/04139.
Participants with a history of TBI (n = 15) disclosed the year in which they acquired the brain injury and the type of TBI; nine participants acquired a closed head injury, one participant acquired an open head injury, two participants acquired a skull fracture and lastly, three participants reported acquiring the TBI as a result of an ‘other’ mechanism of injury. Participants with a history of TBI also provided a self-report disclosing the location to which the injury was acquired (i.e., frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, or occipital lobe) and whether they experience persistent difficulties due to the TBI (i.e., headaches, dizziness, excessive physical or cognitive fatigue, concentration, memory, irritability, sleep, balance, vision or other). See Fig 1 for a summary of the reported frequencies of lasting difficulties according to self-reported location of damage.