Awareness and compensation in postacute head injury rehabilitation

Deficits in awareness caused by brain Injury can be divided into three types: deficits in intellectual awareness, deficits in emergent awareness, and deficits in anticipatory awareness. The presence or absence of an awareness deficit and the type of awareness deficit will determine the kinds of compensations that patients can use in postacute rehabilitation. Compensations can be divided into four types based upon how they are triggered: anticipatory, recognition, situational, and external compensations. Types of awareness deficits, categories of compensation, and the relationships between awareness and compensation are discussed.