Cranial nerve injuries are a frequent complication in patients who have sustained a traumatic brain injury(TBA). The recognition of cranial nerve injuries and their patterns of recovery will help in the management of TBI patients. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the prevalance of cranial nerve injuries following TBI. One hundred and three consecutive admitted patients to Adult Brain Injury Service were screened but twelve patients excluded from the study because they had a post-injury duration of greater than 6 months, penetrating brain injury, or anoxic brain injury.
There were 70 males and 21 females for the study and the age ranged from 16~63 years(meas, 31 years). A cranial nerve injury occurred in 59.3% of the patients (54/91); the facial nerve(30.77%), oculomotor nerve (25.27%) and the olfactoy nerve (14.29%) were the most frequently observed injuries, There was significant correlation with cranial nerve injury and the presence of skull fracture at the level of p-value 0.1.
