BRAIN INJURY MEDICINE PROTOCOLS AND CLINICAL ALGORITHMS 2026

Recovery after a severe brain injury is won or lost across a long chain of decisions. This book helps you get every link right.

A Focused Resource for ABPMR and ABPN Brain Injury Medicine Certification

Brain injury medicine plays out over weeks and months, across many clinicians and many settings, and the outcome depends on a long sequence of correct decisions. The strongest practitioners do not improvise that sequence — they work to clear pathways that hold up from the intensive care unit through inpatient rehabilitation and into community reintegration. This book builds exactly that structure and follows the arc of recovery the way the ABPMR and ABPN Brain Injury Medicine examinations test it, with thresholds and guideline values checked against the Brain Trauma Foundation, the American Academy of Neurology, the AHA/American Stroke Association, and FDA labeling.

What This Book Covers

• Acute management algorithms for severe TBI and stroke, plus disorders-of-consciousness assessment
• Inpatient rehabilitation admission criteria and early agitation management
• Cognitive rehabilitation across attention training, memory, and executive function
• Motor recovery protocols — spasticity management, gait training, and upper-extremity rehabilitation
• Neurobehavioral and communication care, including depression, aggression, aphasia, and dysphagia
• Medical complications of brain injury: seizures, heterotopic ossification, and autonomic dysfunction
• Special populations and the full continuum of outcome measurement, discharge planning, community reintegration, and lifelong care

Each of the twenty-four chapters shares one dependable structure: a defined scope, structured teaching sections, Key Point and Pitfall boxes that flag the errors examiners and real cases punish most, Clinical Correlation boxes that tie principles to the bedside, tables and diagrams designed for recall under pressure, and Check Your Understanding review questions with answers.

Who This Book Is For

This guide is written for physiatrists, neurologists, and fellows preparing for Brain Injury Medicine certification, and for every member of the interdisciplinary rehabilitation team who wants a systematic, evidence-based refresher on evaluation, treatment planning, rehabilitation, and recovery care. It serves equally as a structured first pass and as a focused review before the examination, and its self-contained chapters let you move directly to spasticity, disorders of consciousness, or discharge planning as a given patient requires.

Read it once to build the framework; return to it to sharpen each pathway until it is automatic — for the boards, and for the patients and families counting on a coordinated, expert recovery.

Disclaimer: This book is an independent educational study aid. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the ABPMR, ABPN, or any certifying organization.