Abstract:
The capacity to make decisions about medical care and financial issues is essential to independent functioning in the community. Diminished capacity in those areas has been studied in individuals with some types of brain disorder, such as dementia, but never with respect to TBI. Marson has developed objective techniques to evaluate decision-making capacity concerning medical care and finances. This project will examine the use of those instruments with a TBI population, exploring differences in capacity compared to non-injured controls as well as the change in capacity over a period of several months following TBI.