Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Characteristics and Symptoms in Preschool Children: How Do They Differ to School Age Children? A Multicenter Prospective Observational Study.
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
; 105(1): 120-124, 2024 01.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37715760
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE:
To investigate if preschool children differ to school age children with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) with respect to injury causes, clinical presentation, and medical management.DESIGN:
A secondary analysis of a dataset from a large, prospective and multisite cohort study on TBI in children aged 0-18 years, the Australian Paediatric Head Injury Rules Study.SETTING:
Nine pediatric emergency departments (ED) and 1 combined adult and pediatric ED located across Australia and New Zealand.PARTICIPANTS:
7080 preschool aged children (2-5 years) were compared with 5251 school-age children (6-12 years) with mild TBI (N= (N=12,331) MAIN OUTCOMEMEASURES:
Clinical report form on medical symptoms, injury causes, and management.RESULTS:
Preschool children were less likely to be injured with a projectile than school age children (P<.001). Preschool children presented with less loss of consciousness (P<.001), vomiting (P<.001), drowsiness (P=.002), and headache (P<.001), and more irritability and agitation (P=.003), than school-age children in the acute period after mild TBI. Preschool children were less likely to have neuroimaging of any kind (P<.001) or to be admitted for observation than school age children (P<.001).CONCLUSIONS:
Our large prospective study has demonstrated that preschool children with mild TBI experience a different acute symptom profile to older children. There are significant clinical implications with symptoms post-TBI used in medical management to aid decisions on neuroimaging and post-acute intervention.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Brain Concussion
/
Brain Injuries, Traumatic
Type of study:
Clinical_trials
/
Diagnostic_studies
/
Observational_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Adult
/
Child
/
Child, preschool
/
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Oceania
Language:
En
Journal:
Arch Phys Med Rehabil
Year:
2024
Type:
Article