Rehabilitation for Children After Acquired Brain Injury: Current and Emerging Approaches

Evidence is emerging of diverse, chronic, cumulative disabilities experienced by children in the months and years after acquired brain injury. The long-held assumption that younger children recover better from brain injury than older children or adults has been challenged by recent studies. Populations with acquired brain injury include children with traumatic brain injury and stroke, and a proportion of children with cerebral palsy. Although characteristics of brain injury in children vary, subgroups of this population offer the potential to inform our understanding of developing brain structure-function relationships in response to intervention. Limited evidence and few controlled rehabilitation trials exist regarding children with neurologic conditions. A number of rehabilitation approaches produced benefits in adult stroke, and cerebral palsy populations may be applied to children with other acquired brain injuries. Rehabilitation approaches that have been applied to children with acquired brain injuries, or hold promise for future applications, are reviewed.