Investigation of the revised Wessex head Injury Matrix (WHIM-II)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Prospective study investigating the efficacy of the revised Wessex Head Injury Matrix II / Children’s Head Injury Matrix
IRAS ID
170837
Contact name
Anita Rose
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The Raphael Medical Centre
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
While recent research in the area of Disorders of Consciousness (DoC) has concentrated on the use of neuroimaging to establish accurate diagnosis and differentiation between the different states, access to this technology and expertise is not universal and, indeed in both the Irish and British context is offered to a minority of people diagnosed as having a DoC. Routine assessment offered to these patients is on the basis of either neurobehavioural assessment and / or clinical consensus and the accuracy of such diagnosis is poor and has not improved in the last fifteen years.(Schnakers et al, 2009). Therefore it is important that neurobehavioural tools are as accurate as possible and offer the assessor clear information to aid clinical decision making.
There are a number of neurobehavioural scales and assessments available. At present, the three most commonly used in such assessment are the JFK Coma Scale (Giacino et al..) the Sensory Modality and Rehabilitation Tool (SMART) Gill Thwaites et al )and the Wessex Head Injury Matrix (WHIM) . Of these the WHIM is the most easily accessible as it required no specialised training and can be used by all members of the multidisciplinary team.
The WHIM has recently undergone revision analysis (Sheil, Wilson, Rose et al). This now needs to be piloted with participants with DoC and the psychometric properties (reliability, validity) and clinical utility of the scale to be evaluated.REC name
London - Camden & Kings Cross Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/1442
Date of REC Opinion
4 Nov 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion