Abstract: Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy of Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment (LOTCA) battery for patients at the early stage of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods 72 patients with TBI hospitalized from January, 2013 to October, 2014 and 30 healthy controls matched gender, age and educational background were assessed with the Chinese version of LOTCA battery and Mini- Mental State Examination (MMSE) respectively. Results The score of MMSE and LOTCA were correlated (r=0.56, P<0.01). Compared with the controls, the scores of all the subtests of LOTCA decreased (P<0.01) in the patients, especially the orientation, visuomotor organization and thinking operation; with the more incidence of medium and serious dysfunction of all the subtests of LOTCA except perception (P<0.01), in which thinking operation was the most and attention was the least. The area under the receiver operating curve (ROC) was (0.84±0.04) in LOTCA, less than that of (0.91±0.03) in MMSE (P<0.05). Conclusion Cognition is widely impaired in patients after TBI, most involved thinking operation. LOTCA is less effective to identify cognitive dysfunction than MMSE, and can be used as an alternation or a supplement.

Key words: Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment, Mini-Mental State Examination, traumatic brain injury, cognitive impairment, assessment, efficacy