JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Long-term physical, cognitive, and psychosocial problems resulting from moderate-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) can prevent individuals from returning to pre-injury lifestyles due to significant challenges with employment, leisure, and relationships. While physical activity (PA) is proposed as a cost-effective method to alleviate problems after moderate-severe TBI, there is currently no review to date that synthesizes evidence for PA in the community-based context. Further, although sex and gender considerations in research are considered requisite to good science, there is no review on PA and TBI that has included this explicit focus.

Objective:

The purpose of this review is to map and synthesize the current evidence identified through a systematic search of community-based PA interventions for individuals of all ages with moderate-severe TBI and provide an overview of that evidence by asking the following research questions: what are the characteristics of community-based PA programs for individuals with moderate-severe TBI; what are the reported health-related outcomes and measurement tools used to evaluate them; and what considerations have been given to sex and/or gender?

Methods:

Searches will be conducted through six academic databases for peer-reviewed articles. Two reviewers will independently screen the articles for inclusion and extract data for the analysis. The extracted data will be coded with the Consensus on Exercise Reporting Template and the Template for Intervention Description and Replication to provide sufficient detail for replication.

Results:

Currently, the abstract screening was completed by two reviewers and the extracted data is being analyzed. A qualitative synthesis and description of community-based PA interventions for individuals with moderate-severe TBI will be provided.

Conclusions:

This scoping review will generate new knowledge from published and publicly available literature. Dissemination of the results will include activities related to knowledge transfer for community-based PA after moderate-severe TBI for future research and practice. Evidence-based recommendations, future directions, potential limitations, use of online/digital components and the possible need for a systematic review will be discussed as well.