Acta neurologica Scandinavica
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Acta Neurol. Scand. · May 1995
Course of attention and memory after common whiplash: a two-years prospective study with age, education and gender pair-matched patients.
Attentional functioning and memory of common whiplash patients were evaluated during the first two years after experiencing injury. The study was based on a non-selected sample of 117 whiplash patients referred from primary care and recruited according to a strict injury definition. All patients had a similar socioeconomic background, all being injured in automobile accidents and fully covered by insurance plans. ⋯ In attentional functioning, different levels of improvement were found for symptomatic patients and matched counterparts, with the former showing difficulty at follow-up with tasks of divided attention. Utilized medication and pain intensity could not explain this difference in recovery of attentional functioning between the groups. These findings suggest problems in selective aspects of attentional functioning after common whiplash, which under real life circumstances may explain these patients' cognitive complaints and cause adaptational problems in daily life.