Participation after traumatic brain injury:the surplus value of social cognition tests beyond measures for executive functioning and dysexecutive behavior in a statistical prediction model

Objective: This study evaluates the contribution of measures for social cognition (SC), executive functioning (EF) and dysexecutive behavior to the statistical prediction of social and vocational participation in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI), taking into account age and injury severity. Method: A total of 63 patients with moderate to severe TBI participated. They were administered a semi-structured Role Resumption List for social (RRL-SR) and vocational participation (RRL-RTW). EF was measured with planning- and switching tasks. Assessment of SC included tests for facial affect recognition and Theory of Mind (ToM). Dysexecutive behavior was proxy-rated with a questionnaire. Additionally, healthy controls were assessed with the same protocol. Results: Patients with TBI performed significantly worse on tests and had significantly more behavioral problems compared to healthy controls. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses for the TBI group revealed that SC accounted for 22% extra variance in RRL-RTW and 10% extra variance in RRL-SR, which was significant over and above the amounts of variance explained by EF, dysexecutive behavior, age and injury severity. Conclusions: Our findings underline the added value of measures of SC and dysexecutive behavior in the prediction of social and vocational participation post-TBI. In particular, impairments in ToM, and dysexecutive behavior were related to a lower participation making them important targets for rehabilitation

Deficits in Facial Emotion Recognition Indicate Behavioral Changes and Impaired Self-Awareness after Moderate to Severe Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of disability, specifically among younger adults. Behavioral changes are common after moderate to severe TBI and have adverse consequences for social and vocational functioning. It is hypothesized that deficits in social cognition, including facial affect recognition, might underlie these behavioral changes. Measurement of behavioral deficits is complicated, because the rating scales used rely on subjective judgement, often lack specificity and many patients provide unrealistically positive reports of their functioning due to impaired self-awareness. Accordingly, it is important to find performance based tests that allow objective and early identification of these problems. In the present study 51 moderate to severe TBI patients in the sub-acute and chronic stage were assessed with a test for emotion recognition (FEEST) and a questionnaire for behavioral problems (DEX) with a self and proxy rated version. Patients performed worse on the total score and on the negative emotion subscores of the FEEST than a matched group of 31 healthy controls. Patients also exhibited significantly more behavioral problems on both the DEX self and proxy rated version, but proxy ratings revealed more severe problems. No significant correlation was found between FEEST scores and DEX self ratings. However, impaired emotion recognition in the patients, and in particular of Sadness and Anger, was significantly correlated with behavioral problems as rated by proxies and with impaired self-awareness. This is the first study to find these associations, strengthening the proposed recognition of social signals as a condition for adequate social functioning. Hence, deficits in emotion recognition can be conceived as markers for behavioral problems and lack of insight in TBI patients. This finding is also of clinical importance since, unlike behavioral problems, emotion recognition can be objectively measured early after injury, allowing for early detection and treatment of these problems

To Fear is to Gain? The Role of Fear Recognition in Risky Decision Making in TBI Patients and Healthy Controls

Fear is an important emotional reaction that guides decision making in situations of ambiguity or uncertainty. Both recognition of facial expressions of fear and decision making ability can be impaired after traumatic brain injury (TBI), in particular when the frontal lobe is damaged. So far, it has not been investigated how recognition of fear influences risk behavior in healthy subjects and TBI patients. The ability to recognize fear is thought to be related to the ability to experience fear and to use it as a warning signal to guide decision making. We hypothesized that a better ability to recognize fear would be related to a better regulation of risk behavior, with healthy controls outperforming TBI patients. To investigate this, 59 healthy subjects and 49 TBI patients were assessed with a test for emotion recognition (Facial Expression of Emotion: Stimuli and Tests) and a gambling task (Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)). The results showed that, regardless of post traumatic amnesia duration or the presence of frontal lesions, patients were more impaired than healthy controls on both fear recognition and decision making. In both groups, a significant relationship was found between better fear recognition, the development of an advantageous strategy across the IGT and less risk behavior in the last blocks of the IGT. Educational level moderated this relationship in the final block of the IGT. This study has important clinical implications, indicating that impaired decision making and risk behavior after TBI can be preceded by deficits in the processing of fear

Remediating impairments in social cognition

Impairments in social cognition, such as inadequate perception or understanding of socially relevant information, are common and salient sequelae of many neurocognitive, neurodevelopmental, and neuropsychiatric disorders. Presence of social cognitive impairment is core to diagnosis in some conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but they can also be acquired or exacerbated through a range of other presentations, such as serious brain injury, e.g. traumatic brain injury, or through development of a psychiatric disorder, e.g. schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD). Social cognitive deficits are known to disrupt interpersonal relationships, with negative consequences for the everyday life functioning and social participation of patients. Hence, effective treatments are sorely needed.This chapter provides an overview of neuropsychological rehabilitation methods, with consideration to how these relate to the remediation of social cognition. It then reviews the evidence base of social cognitive treatment interventions that target one or more processes of social cognition, e.g. emotion recognition, empathy, theory of mind, and social behaviour. A distinction is made between treatments that focus on a single aspect of social cognition versus treatments that are multifaceted. Treatments developed for patients with serious brain injury will be discussed in detail, with approaches trialed in ASD and SSD also considered

Remediating impairments in social cognition

Impairments in social cognition, such as inadequate perception or understanding of socially relevant information, are common and salient sequelae of many neurocognitive, neurodevelopmental, and neuropsychiatric disorders. Presence of social cognitive impairment is core to diagnosis in some conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but they can also be acquired or exacerbated through a range of other presentations, such as serious brain injury, e.g. traumatic brain injury, or through development of a psychiatric disorder, e.g. schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD). Social cognitive deficits are known to disrupt interpersonal relationships, with negative consequences for the everyday life functioning and social participation of patients. Hence, effective treatments are sorely needed. This chapter provides an overview of neuropsychological rehabilitation methods, with consideration to how these relate to the remediation of social cognition. It then reviews the evidence base of social cognitive treatment interventions that target one or more processes of social cognition, e.g. emotion recognition, empathy, theory of mind, and social behaviour. A distinction is made between treatments that focus on a single aspect of social cognition versus treatments that are multifaceted. Treatments developed for patients with serious brain injury will be discussed in detail, with approaches trialed in ASD and SSD also considered

Performance of healthy subjects on an ecologically valid test for social cognition:The short, Dutch Version of The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT)

The present paper addresses the psychometric quality of the shortened Dutch version of The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT), a social cognition task comprising dynamic social interactions. Because the original TASIT required a rather long administration time, two shortened parallel forms were developed. Results showed that TASIT-short was feasible and that the two alternate forms were reasonably comparable in a group of neurologically healthy individuals (N = 98). Also, the results confirmed the ecological validity of TASIT-short in this healthy group. The test appeared sensitive to brain injury as it differentiated between the healthy subjects and a group of patients with acquired brain injury (N = 16). On the basis of the present study we conclude that TASIT-short has added value to the assessment of social cognition in patients with acquired brain injury

Dutch Multifactor Fatigue Scale: A New Scale to Measure the Different Aspects of Fatigue After Acquired Brain Injury

Objectives: To develop the Dutch Multifactor Fatigue Scale (DMFS), a new scale to assess the nature and impact of fatigue and coping with fatigue in the chronic phase after acquired brain injury (ABI) and to analyze the psychometric properties of this scale in a mixed group of patients with ABI. Design: Cross-sectional survey study. Setting: Academic rehabilitation center. Participants: A mixed sample of patients with ABI (N=134). For the development of the DMFS: community-dwelling adults with stroke (n=9) and traumatic brain injury (n=5). For analyses of the psychometric properties of the DMFS: community-dwelling adults with ischemic stroke (n=55), hemorrhagic stroke (n=22), traumatic brain injury (n=35), or other ABIs (n=22), all at least 6 months after brain injury. Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: DMFS, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Checklist Individual Strength, and Dutch Personality Questionnaire. Results: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on data of 134 patients showed that the final DMFS consisted of 5 factors (explaining 55% of the variance): Impact of fatigue, Mental fatigue, Signs and Direct consequences of fatigue, Physical fatigue, and Coping with fatigue. All subscales of the DMFS showed sufficient to good reliability, good convergent validity with an existing fatigue scale, and good divergent validity with measures of mood and self-esteem. Conclusions: The DMFS is believed to improve the diagnostic process of fatigue in the chronic phase after ABI. As it measures several factors of fatigue after brain injury, therapeutic indications can be targeted to patients' needs. (C) 2015 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicin

Behaviors of Concern after Acquired Brain Injury: The Role of Negative Emotion Recognition and Anger Misattribution

OBJECTIVE: Behavioral changes are common after acquired brain injury (ABI) and may be caused by social cognition impairments. We investigated whether impaired emotion recognition, specifically Negative Emotion Recognition (NER) and Anger Misattribution (AM), after ABI was related to behavioral problems, so-called Behaviors of Concern (BoC). METHOD: The study included 139 participants with ABI and 129 healthy controls. BoC was measured using four scales of the Brock Adaptive Functioning Questionnaire (BAFQ): Impulsivity, Aggression, Social Monitoring, and Empathy. Both self-ratings and informant ratings of BoC were obtained. Emotion recognition was measured with the Ekman 60 Faces Test (FEEST). A NER score was composed of the summed scores on Anger, Disgust, Fear, and Sadness. An AM score was composed of the number of facial expressions wrongly recognized as Anger. RESULTS: Total FEEST scores in ABI participants were significantly worse than in healthy controls. The effect size is moderate. Informants rated significantly more problems in Social Monitoring and Empathy than participants. Effect sizes were small. Scores on FEEST total, NER, and AM were significantly correlated to informant ratings of Social Monitoring. Correlations were weak to moderate. CONCLUSIONS: Worse NER and more profound AM were related to more informant-rated problems in social monitoring. In addition, informants rated more problems in social monitoring and empathy than participants. This strongly suggests problems in self-awareness in ABI participants. Consequently, social cognition tests and informant ratings should be used in clinical practice to improve the detection and treatment of BoC after ABI

Effectiveness of a Treatment for Impairments in Social Cognition and Emotion Regulation (T-ScEmo) After Traumatic Brain Injury:A Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective: To evaluate the effects of a multifaceted Treatment for Social cognition and Emotion regulation (T-ScEmo) in patients with a traumatic brain injury.  Participants: Sixty-one patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury randomly assigned to an experimental T-ScEmo intervention or a Cogniplus control condition.  Interventions: T-ScEmo is a compensatory strategy training for impairments in emotion recognition, theory of mind, and social behavioral skills. Cogniplus is a computerized cognitive function training. Both interventions were given in 16 to 20 weekly 1-hour sessions.  Main Measures: Social cognition tests and questionnaires for social behavior (self-and proxy-rated) administered at baseline, immediately posttreatment, and at 3 to 5 months of follow-up.  Results: Compared with the Cogniplus group, the T-ScEmo group improved significantly on facial affect recognition, theory of mind, proxy-rated empathic behavior, societal participation, and treatment goal attainment, which lasted up to 5 months after treatment. At follow-up, the T-ScEmo group also reported higher quality of life and their life partners rated relationship quality to be higher than the Cogniplus group.  Conclusion: This study shows that impairments in social cognition can be effectively dealt with by using a comprehensive treatment protocol, leading to improvements in everyday life social functioning