Clinical features of dementia cases ascertained by ICD coding in LIMBIC-CENC multicenter study of mild traumatic brain injury.
William C Walker, Justin O'Rourke, Elisabeth Anne Wilde and 11 others
PMID 35108129WHAT IT FOUND
Five service members and veterans with mTBI had dementia codes; all had moderate or severe daily-life disability.
Two of five had study cognitive test results that did not support a dementia diagnosis, so ICD coding alone may be unreliable.
Key findings
01Five participants met the dementia-code criteria, while 1,554 participants had no dementia codes.
02All five dementia-coded cases scored at moderate or severe disability on global function, and none reported good recovery.
03Two of five dementia-coded cases would not have received a dementia diagnosis based on the study neurocognitive battery.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only five participants met the dementia-code criteria, so the findings cannot be generalized. No hypothesis testing was possible because of the small number of cases. Dementia codes came only from VA care and some VA-reimbursed private care, so dementia diagnoses in other private care may have been missed. ICD dementia coding may be inaccurate: two of five cases did not support a dementia diagnosis on the study cognitive battery. PTSD symptoms and psychoactive medications may have contributed to cognitive complaints or dementia codes. A case series cannot show that mild TBI caused dementia.
Declared interests
No conflict-of-interest declaration is included in the supplied text. The article is listed as supported by U.S. Government and NIH funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that mild TBI caused dementia or that ICD dementia codes are accurate. Only five cases were identified, no hypothesis testing was done, and two of five did not support dementia on study cognitive testing.