Rabinowitz Research

Rabinowitz, A. R., Collier, G., Vaccaro, M., & Wingfield, R. (2022). Development of RehaBot-A Conversational Agent for Promoting Rewarding Activities in Users with Traumatic Brain Injury. The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.

This article described the development and preliminary testing of RehaBot (a chatbot that users communicate with via text messaging) which was designed to augment behavioral activation treatment to reduce depression and increase participation in individuals with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury.

Rabinowitz, A.R., Kumar, R., Sima, A., Venkatesan, U.M., Juengst, S., O'Neil-Pirozzi, T.M., Watanabe, T., Goldin, Y., Hammond, F.M. and Dreer, L., (2021). Aging with traumatic brain injury: deleterious effects of injury chronicity are most pronounced in l

This study leveraged a well-defined cohort of individuals who sustained a moderate/severe TBI and received acute inpatient rehabilitation at specialized centers with high follow-up rates as part of their involvement in the TBI Model Systems longitudinal study to examine the independent and interactive effects of aging and chronicity on functional outcomes after TBI. We found that both older age and greater injury chronicity were related to greater disability, reduced functional independence, and less community participation. There was a significant age by chronicity interaction, indicating that the adverse effects of greater time post-injury were most pronounced among survivors who were age 75 or older. 

Rabinowitz, A. R., & Fisher, A. J. (2020). Person-specific methods for characterizing the course and temporal dynamics of concussion symptomatology: a pilot study. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 1-9.

This paper presented a novel framework for conceptualizing, collecting, and analyzing concussion symptom data using ecological momentary assessment. We described the temporal and structural dynamics of acute concussion symptoms at the individual-patient level in ten adolescents and young adults with recent concussions. Person-specific analytic techniques revealed idiosyncratic features of post-concussion symptomatology that could be examined in future research to better understand individual differences in concussion recovery.

Deshpande, S. K., Hasegawa, R. B., Rabinowitz, A. R., Whyte, J., Roan, C. L., Tabatabaei, A., ... & Small, D. S. (2017). Association of playing high school football with cognition and mental health later in life. JAMA Neurology. 74(8), 909-918.

This paper estimated the association of playing high school football with cognitive impairment and depression at 65 years of age. Cognitive and depression outcomes later in life were found to be similar for high school football players and their nonplaying counterparts from the mid-1950s in Wisconsin. The risks of playing football today might be different than in the 1950s, but for current athletes, this study provides information on the risk of playing sports today that have a similar risk of head trauma as high school football played in the 1950s.

Rabinowitz, A.R. & Levin, H.L. (2014). Cognitive sequelae of traumatic brain injury. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 37(1), 1-11.

Cognitive dysfunction is the leading cause of disability following traumatic brain injury (TBI). This article provided a review of the cognitive sequelae of TBI, with a focus on deficits of executive functioning and everyday thinking skills. The pathophysiology, assessment, and treatment of TBI-related cognitive problems are also discussed.