Language viewed from the brain I. Honjo, Basel Karger, 1999, X+158 pp. ISBN 3-8055-6789-8, $155.00.pdfVIP

Neuropsychologia 38 (2000) 111±114 Book reviews /locate/neuropsychologia The Evaluation and Treatment of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury N.R. Varney and R.J. Roberts It is estimated in this book that 1.3 million people each year in the United States su?er a blow to the head of su?cient severity for them to be described as su?ering from `mild traumatic brain injury. A number of di?erent de?nitions are bandied about in this at times unruly book. A loss of consciousness lasting a few minutes, and a brief period of loss of mental clarity, perhaps with some brief post-traumatic amnesia, su?ce for some contributors to de?ne the disorder. But for others, signi?cant brain dysfunction can be observed even in the absence of such indicators. As with many other di?cult-to-pin-down disorders, mild traumatic brain injury is associated with a very wide range of very di?use symptoms, ranging from headaches to memory loss, personality change to fatigue. Issues of malingering loom large in the concerns of researchers in this area, not surprisingly given the potential honey-pot of litigation that such a diagnosis entails. New syndromes spring up in this book to explain some of these problems D `epilepsy spectrum disorder being one. While some authors are generous D even evangelical D in casting their diagnostic net, others are more cautious. In the end a sort of consensus emerges that most mild traumatic brain injury su?erers have no detectable abnormalities a year after injury. A minority, on the other hand D the 10±15% `miserable minority as they are called in this book D appear to su?er intractable problems that seem disproportionate to the assessed trauma for years beyond the accident on the road, home or sports ?eld. A very small number of such cases can develop what transpires to be brain damage as measured by current recognised methods of assessing brain structure and function. The remainder are sifted and graded by a wide range of questionnaires, tests and interviews whose scienti