Association between early cognitive rehabilitation and long-term cognitive recovery in patients with mild…

Cohort studyFrontiers in human neuroscience· 2026

Association between early cognitive rehabilitation and long-term cognitive recovery in patients with mild traumatic brain injury: a retrospective cohort study.

Yi Ren, Huiying Wu, Yumei Lu … Qian Su

Brain Injury MedicineCohort studyQ1IF 3.3

Early cognitive rehabilitation linked to greater MoCA improvement after mild traumatic brain injury

Association between early cognitive rehabilitation and long-term cognitive recovery in patients with mild traumatic brain injury: a retrospective cohort study.

Yi Ren … Qian Su

Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026

Purpose

To examine the association between early cognitive rehabilitation (early cognitive rehabilitation) and long-term cognitive, functional, and biomarker outcomes in patients with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).

Methods

This single-center retrospective cohort study included 185 patients with mTBI who completed at least 12 months of follow-up.

n = 185 patients

Results

MoCA scores rose more with early cognitive rehab than without it

E-CR

7.03ΔMoCA

Non-early-CR

3.01ΔMoCA

More results

Baseline characteristics were comparable between groups.

Early cognitive rehabilitation remained independently associated with MoCA improvement after adjustment for age, education, admission GCS score, and baseline MoCA score.

The early cognitive rehabilitation group also showed better ADL and GOS-E outcomes.

More results

Exploratory biomarker analyses showed lower NfL, GFAP, and IL-6 levels in the early cognitive rehabilitation group at 6 and 12 months.

“

Conclusion · 1 of 2

Early cognitive rehabilitation was associated with better long-term cognitive and functional outcomes and with more favorable exploratory biomarker trajectories in patients with mTBI.

Conclusion · 2 of 2

Prospective studies are needed to confirm causality and clarify underlying mechanisms.

Association between early cognitive rehabilitation and long-term cognitive recovery in patients with mild traumatic brain injury: a retrospective cohort study.

Association between early cognitive rehabilitation and long-term cognitive recovery in patients with mild traumatic brain injury: a retrospective cohort study.

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