A Psychological Portrait of a Teenager in the Posttraumatic Confusional State

Abstract

The Russian statistics demonstrate that in Russia, brain injuries are increasing every year what is particularly tragic if to speak about children. After traumatic brain injury (TBI), the process of consciousness restoration develops in stages. In Russian science, stages of mental recovery in adults are described by the neuropsychiatric group of researchers from Burdenko Institute of Neurosurgery. The authors have introduced the term amnestic confusion to designate the stage at which there is a possibility to have the verbal contact with amnestic defects and disorders of orientation in time and space. In foreign literature, this stage is defined as post-traumatic state of confused consciousness (PTCS). In children (adolescents), the state of confused consciousness after traumatic brain injury is met in about 80%. The aim of the study was to make a detailed description and phenomenological analysis of some psychological characteristics of the confused state in adolescents after brain injury what will add to the overall picture of medical and neuropsychological examinations. 62 teenagers in the confused consciousness state after TBI were taken into the study. The authors present their observations and analysis of such psychological phenomena as behavioral and emotional characteristics, social intelligence, gender and age identification.