The current status and problems of rehabilitation for TBI (traumatic brain injury) patients in Japan

Recently, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the major topics of rehabilitation medicine. In the USA, a nationwide research project has already been underway since 1987. However, interest in the rehabilitation of TBI patients became a matter of concern in Japan from the 1990s. TBI patients do not only have physical impairments, but also impairments of higher cortical functions such as cognitive impairment and abnormal behavior, so both physical and cognitive rehabilitation are very important for TBI patients. The purpose of this paper is to report on the current status of and problems with TBI rehabilitation in Japan, and also to introduce a new TBI evaluation system that we originally developed in Japan.