Long-Term Outcomes of Critically Ill Patients with Acute Brain Injury

Neurocritical care has evolved into a discipline with clear benefits, with organised services linked to lower mortality and better functional outcomes. Yet, many survivors of acute brain injury (ABI) admitted to intensive care units continue to experience significant physical, cognitive, and emotional impairments long after discharge. Despite advances in acute management, long-term recovery trajectories remain poorly characterised, often measured by crude or inconsistent metrics that overlook patients’ quality of life and day-to-day functioning. Current evidence highlights a pressing need for better tools, standardised follow-up, and more nuanced understanding of how these patients recover over time and across different healthcare contexts.This Research Topic aims to deepen understanding of long-term outcomes among critically ill patients with ABI, encompassing mortality, functional recovery, neurological and cognitive sequelae, and emerging patient-centered measures such as days alive and at home. By integrating diverse methodological approaches and global perspectives, it seeks to clarify recovery patterns, refine outcome assessment, and identify strategies to improve life after critical neurological illness.The Research Topic focuses on characterising recovery trajectories and long-term wellbeing after acute brain injury in the ICU. This encompasses primary aetiologies of ABI (trauma, subarachnoid and intracerebral hemorrhage, ischemic stroke, infection, seizure) as well as secondary aetiologies (neurological complications or sequela of other disease processes such as sepsis or cardiac arrest and iatrogenic injuries such as those during surgery, anesthesia, or organ support). To gather further insights into these outcomes, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:-Long-term survival and functional outcomes after neurocritical illness-Cognitive and psychological sequelae following ABI-Development and validation of patient-centered outcomes-Data-driven approaches and predictive models for long-term recovery-Outcome disparities in low- and middle-income settings-Comparative studies of different ABI aetiologiesWe encourage novel datasets, analytical approaches and reports from low- and middle-income settings, where long-term evidence remains scarce. Topic editors: Lavienraj Premraj, Nekane Romero García, Gentle Sunder Shrestha Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/82450/long-term-outcomes-of-critically-ill-patients-with-acute-brain-injury