Four-year follow-up of a controlled memory training study in closed head injured patients

Abstract In a controlled group study Berg, Koning-Haanstra, and Deelman (1991) compared the effects of memory strategy training with the effects of drill and practice training and no treatment in severely head injured patients. Four months after training the group in the strategy condition performed significantly better on three memory tests than the patient groups in the other two conditions. Four years following this last evaluation, 31 of the 38 patients from the original training study were retested on the same memory tests. Thirteen normal subjects, who had already served as normal controls in the training study, were also retested. In contrast to the results four years earlier, memory performance was the same for all three patient groups. The level of performance of the patients was still well below the level of the normal controls. One reason for the disappearance of the advantage of the strategy group over the other two patient groups, was the drop-out of patients with relatively poor memory scores on the previous evaluation. A second reason was the improvement in memory performance relative to the previous evaluation found in the drill and practice and the no-treatment groups.