Review of motor recovery in patients with traumatic brain injury

Detailed information about motor recovery is essential for brain rehabilitation because it enables us to establish scientific rehabilitative strategies and predict motor outcome. For this review, we summarized the literature on motor recovery of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in relation to the following: epidemiology of motor weakness, mechanisms of injury that cause motor weakness, course of motor recovery, and mechanisms underlying motor recovery. The motor weakness in patients with TBI is characterized by a low incidence, decreased severity, long recovery time, and good motor outcome when comparing with cognitive or behavior problems following TBI or the motor weakness affecting stroke patients. However, there are few studies describing the course of motor recovery and the underlying mechanisms of motor recovery. Knowledge in the course of recovery and the mechanisms of recovery can alert clinicians to obtain the salient information about the critical period for rehabilitation and the rehabilitative strategies respectively. Therefore, we suggest that further research should focus on these topics.