Guidelines are tools for improving health care and assisting health care professionals to make clinical decisions based on scientific evidence and expert opinions. The most important benefit of CPGs are their potential to improve both the quality and consistency of care provided by healthcare professionals and resulting patient health outcomes. Their beneficial effects, however, are contingent on not only a methodologically rigorous guideline development process that incorporates the best evidence available, but also successful implementation of the resulting recommendations and associated tools.
The INESSS-ONF Guideline was designed to provide evidence based recommendations for rehabilitation services for adults having sustained a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). The guideline:
The present guideline is appropriate for use with adults (i.e. 18 to 65 years old) who have sustained a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).
The primary users targeted by the INESSS-ONF Guideline are healthcare professionals and managers providing rehabilitation services to individuals having sustained a moderate to severe TBI, in both:
The Guideline is also applicable to providers in community-based rehabilitation, and support workers who provide rehabilitation and medical care for traumatic brain injury patients:
The Guideline may also be used by other stakeholders (policy makers, funding bodies) and adult individuals with moderate to severe TBI and their families/caregivers who may wish to know more about best practices in rehabilitation.
The INESSS-ONF Guideline is divided in two sections: Section I: Components of the Optimal TBI Rehabilitation System and Section II: Assessment and Rehabilitation of Brain Injury Sequelae.
A subset of 11 of the 266 recommendations are identified as "fundamental" to optimal rehabilitation service delivery for this clientele, while another group of 106 recommendations are categorized as "priority" practices to be put in place in order to improve service quality and effectiveness. Original recommendations newly developed by the expert panel (i.e. not adapted from existing CPG's) are identified as “novel”. Each section presents the list of recommendations accompanied by short discussions concerning the rationale, the system implications, suggested key indicators and the summary of evidence supporting the recommendations. Ongoing development of the guideline will allow the addition of tools and implementation resources. Note that these pertain to the section as a whole.
Users wanting to find recommendations pertaining to a specific issue can click on any subsection in Sections I or II, which are further divided into numbered components. Users wanting to find recommendations on specific topics can also use the Search Function to enter by keyword, or can click one or more of the Tags listed below to limit or filter the information being sought. Recommendations that are relevant to the keyword search or the tags will appear.
Users will have the opportunity to print off specific sections or searches through the "Save or print this page" option. The full guideline can be found as a pdf format document in the "Guideline Components" menu bar, under Recommendations. (this is a large document). Also available as a pdf document are all fundamental and priority recommendations.
The content of these guidelines are based on the scientific knowledge available at the time of their finalization (2015) as well as on the opinion of the experts who participated in the development of the guidelines. Choices reflected in these guidelines do not preclude the possibility of other approaches or practices also being valid and relevant. Healthcare professionals must at all times use their clinical judgment and consider other factors such as patient preferences and resource availability in applying these recommendations. Moreover, healthcare professionals must at all times respect the legal and normative regulations of the regulatory bodies, in particular with regards to scopes of practice and restricted/protected activities, as these may differ provincially.
Clinicians should use caution in using most published standardized, norm-referenced tests for the evaluation and assessment of persons with traumatic brain injury. Many of the tests recommended by publishers, distributors, and clinicians were not developed for persons with traumatic brain injury and do not address traumatic brain injury in their development or standardization.
The developers, contributors and supporting partners shall not be liable for any damages, claims, liabilities, costs or obligations arising from the use or misuse of this material, including loss or damage arising from any claims made by a third party.
This Guideline was first released in September 2016. Since then, it has been converted to a Living Guideline with ongoing updates occurring regularly (usually within two years). Dates of the last updates are indicated in each chapter of the Guideline.
INESSS and ONF invite user feedback to the Guideline through a Feedback Form available on most pages on the website. Any errors identified or need to amend the guideline due to changes in evidence will be considered by ONF and INESSS on a quarterly basis. Changes made to the guideline as a result will be identified as revised content on the website.