Peope with higher education recover from traumatic brain injuries better, a latest study reveals.
Researchers examined 786 people with moderate to severe brain injuries, mostly due to motor vehicle accidents or falls. All participants had spent time in hospital emergency departments and inpatient rehabilitation facilities after injury. The average age of the participants was 23.
"After these types of injuries, some people are disabled for life and are never able to go back to work, while other people who have similar injuries recover fully," study author Eric B. Schneider, PhD, of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md., and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, said in a news release. "We understand some factors that lead to these differences, but we can't explain all of the variation. These results may provide another piece of the puzzle."
The researchers tracked the participants after a year of their injury and divided them in to different groups by education level.
The findings revealed that 28 percent or 219 participants suffered no disability and were able to return to work or school. Out of these only 23 people or 10 percent participants were those who did not complete high school. However, 31 percent or 136 people with some college education and 39 percent or 76 people with college degrees recovered completely without any disability.
"People with education equal to a college degree were more than seven times more likely to fully recover from their injury than people who did not finish high school," Schneider said. "And people with some college education were nearly five times more likely to fully recover than those without enough education to earn a high school diploma. We need to learn more about how education helps to protect the brain and how it affects injury and resilience. Exploring these relationships will hopefully help us to identify ways to help people recover better from traumatic brain injury."
The findings were published in the online issue of 'Neurology.'
