Can Early Initiation of Rehabilitation With Wearable Sensor Technology Improve Outcomes in mTBI?

Although balance is one of the most common and debilitating complaints after mTBI, the investigators currently lack clear guidelines on when to initiate balance rehabilitation and it is unclear if early physical therapy is beneficial. There is a clear gap in clinical care guidelines after mTBI and it is unclear if initiating rehabilitation early would improve outcomes related to imbalance. Measures of imbalance are subjective and are easily overlooked as a treatable deficit. Even with rehabilitation, recovery of balance in people with mTBI is challenging, particularly in people with central vestibular and sensory integration deficits. Although vestibular and balance rehabilitation after mTBI relies heavily on a home exercise program and repetition is essential for recovery; The slow progress in balance rehabilitation may be partially due to an inability of people with mTBI to correctly perform the prescribed rehabilitation exercises on their own. Biofeedback is a clinical technique that provides physiologic information that would otherwise be unknown to patients and may improve outcomes after mTBI. There are no commercially available systems to provide the physical therapist and/or patient objective information on the quality of head movements during training of rehabilitation tasks that involve balance and walking. Therefore, the three objectives of this study are: 1) to determine how the timing of rehabilitation affects outcomes after mTBI; 2) to determine if home monitoring of home balance exercises using wearable sensors improves outcomes; and 3) to develop a novel feedback system using wearable sensors to provide the physical therapist information, in real-time during training, about quality of head and trunk movements during prescribed exercises. 160 individuals with subacute mTBI within 2-12 weeks of the injury will be randomly assigned to receive earlier onset of physical therapy (n=80) right away or be randomly assigned to receive later rehabilitation 6 weeks after enrollment in the standard of care physical therapy group (n=80). A subgroup of participants in the earlier physical therapy (n=40) and standard of care physical therapy (n=40) will be randomly assigned to home monitoring. The participants in the home monitoring subgroups will wear wireless sensors while completing the rehabilitation program to better inform the physical therapist of their progress. The outcome measures will consist of a battery of self-reported questionnaires, and balance and gait measures and will be tested at Pre I (baseline), Pre 2 (6 weeks after baseline for the later physical therapy group), Post (after the intervention), and Retention (6 month follow-up). Peripheral vestibular and ocular motor assessments will occur at the baseline visit only. The central hypothesis is that rehabilitation after mTBI is suboptimal due to late initiation of and inadequate performance of exercises that do not adequately challenge vestibular and sensory integration function. The long-term goal is to clarify best practices for the rehabilitation of balance deficits in people with mTBI by comparing earlier vs later (standard of care) initiation of physical therapy with and without wearable sensors on balance deficits after mTBI. The findings from this research could be very readily adopted into military protocols for post-mTBI care and have the potential to produce better balance rehabilitation and quality of life for mTBI patients and their families.

Inclusion Criteria: * Inclusion criteria will consist of being 1) 18-60 years of age; 2) having no more than minimal cognitive impairment as assessed by the Short Blessed test; 3) having a physician-diagnosed mTBI and being within 2-12 weeks of the injury; and 4) endorsing ≥1 on either balance, dizziness, nausea, headache, or vision problems on the symptom evaluation scale from the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT 5) and a total symptom severity score ≥15. Exclusion Criteria: * Exclusion criteria will consist of: 1) having other musculoskeletal, neurological, or sensory deficits that could explain their dysfunction other than mTBI; 2) having moderate to severe substance use disorder within the past month; 3) experiencing severe pain during the evaluation (≥7/10 subjective rating), 4) are pregnant; and 5) are currently being treated by vestibular physical therapy; All participants will be asked to refrain from taking drugs that may influence balance including sedating antihistamines, benzodiazepines, sedatives, narcotic pain medications, and alcohol for at least 24 hours prior to testing.