The Cognitive Assessment by Visual Election (CAVE): A pilot study to develop a cognitive assessment tool for people emerging from disorders of consciousness.

Instruments for assessing people with disorders of consciousness have been developed over the last 15 years, but there remains a dearth of suitable assessment paradigms for those who have emerged from disorders of consciousness. This paper presents a pilot study for the development of the Cognitive Assessment by Visual Election (CAVE), a short assessment designed to investigate a number of cognitive domains in very severely brain injured patients who are in or have emerged from minimally conscious states (EMCS). Reliability and validity data are presented. The challenge of determining neuropsychological profiles of EMCS patients is discussed, current published assessments are briefly reviewed and suggestions for a wider assessment framework are made.