Vol. 49 - No. 5 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL AND REHABILITATION MEDICINE 611 The Italian National Registry of severe acquired brain injury: epidemiological, clinical and functional data of 1469 patients Patients with TBI presented a lower DRS score at ad- mission and discharge and returned home more fre- quently than NTBI group. Conclusions. The creation of a National registry al- lows the collection of data about patients with ABI in order to study the clinical course, the functional outcome and to establish a basis for comparison with other data sources. Clinical Rehabilitation Impact. Data collection could be useful in the evaluation and planning of rehabilita- tion pathways, and to assess the allocation of health- care and rehabilitative resources. KEY WORDS: Rehabilitation - Outcome assessment - Hypox- ia, brain - Cerebrovascular disorders - Brain injuries. S evere acquired brain injury includes a wide spec- trum of central nervous system damages due to traumatic or non traumatic causes. This condition leads to a state of coma of variable duration and 1 Department of Rehabilitation Sacro Cuore Don Calabria Hospital, Negrar, Verona, Italy 2 Department of Rehabilitation Medicine University of Verona, Verona, Italy 3 Department of Rehabilitation S. Lucia IRCCS Hospital, Rome, Italy 4 Department of Rehabilitation Ca Foncello Hospital, Treviso, Italy 5 Department of Rehabilitation, ASL 3, Umbria, Trevi-Perugia, Italy 6  Servizi Presidi Ospedalieri Agenzia Sanitaria Regione Emilia Romagna Bologna, Italy 7 Department of Rehabilitation, Cardinal Ferrari Hospital Fontanellato-Parma, Italy R. AVESANI 1 , L. RONCARI 2 , M. KHANSEFID 1 , R. FORMISANO 3 , P. BOLDRINI 4 M. ZAMPOLINI 5 , S. FERRO 6 , A. DE TANTI 7 , F. DAMBRUOSO 1, 2 Background. The lack of knowledge about epidemi- ological and clinical data of patients with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) admitted to Rehabilitation facili- ties in Italy led to the creation, in June 2008, of a data collection on-line registry. Aim. To collect epidemiological and clinical data and to evaluate functional outcome of patients with severe traumatic and non-traumatic ABI admitted to Reha- bilitation facilities in Italy between June 2008 and December 2011 and to compare data of patients with ABI of different aetiologies. Design. Observational retrospective study. Setting. The study involved 29 Italian Rehabilitation facilities. Population. The study enrolled 1469 patients with se- vere traumatic (TBI) and non-traumatic ABI (NTBI). Methods. Data collected included demographic (number of patients with TBI and NTBI, gender, age) and clinical characteristics (provenience, number of days elapsed between onset and rehabilitation admission, rehabili- tation length of stay, discharge destination, death and vegetative state diagnosis, presence of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, tracheostomy, pressure sores and paraosteoarthropathies). Functional outcome was evaluated using the Disability Rating Scale. Results. Of the whole population studied, 44.31% and 55.69% patients had suffered a TBI and a NTBI, re- spectively. In the NTBI group 40.09% had a cerebrov- ascular injury, 12.04% an anoxic brain damage, 3.6% had a brain injury of other causes. The mean age was 43.67 and 56.68 for subjects with TBI and NTBI, re- spectively. Patients with TBI showed a lower onset- admission interval (OAI), compared with NTBI group; no difference in rehabilitation length of stay (LOS) was recorded between groups. Corresponding author: R. Avesani, MD, Department of Rehabili- tation, Sacro Cuore Don Calabria Hospital, via don A. Sempreboni 5, 37024 Negrar, Verona, Italy. E-mail: renato.avesani@sacrocuore.it ORIGINAL ARTICLES EUR J PHYS REHABIL MED 2013;49:611-8 MINERVA MEDICA COPYRIGHT® This document is protected by international copyright laws. No additional reproduction is authorized. It is permitted for personal use to download and save only one file and print only one copy of this Article. It is not permitted to make additional copies (either sporadically or systematically, either printed or electronic) of the Article for any purpose. It is not permitted to distribute the electronic copy of the article through online internet and/or intranet file sharing systems, electronic mailing or any other means which may allow access to the Article. The use of all or any part of the Article for any Commercial Use is not permitted. The creation of derivative works from the Article is not permitted. The production of reprints for personal or commercial use is not permitted. It is not permitted to remove, cover, overlay, obscure, block, or change any copyright notices or terms of use which the Publisher may post on the Article. It is not permitted to frame or use framing techniques to enclose any trademark, logo, or other proprietary information of the Publisher.