Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
CDC Provides Guidelines for Doctors to Determine Traumatic Brain Injuries
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has recently revised their guidelines and developed a toolkit for physicians to help them determine if a child has suffered from a traumatic brain injury.
According to the CDC, 75-90% of the 1.4 million traumatic brain injury-related deaths, hospitalizations, and emergency room visits each year are the result of concussions or mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI).
What causes TBI?
- Falls (28%);
- Motor vehicle-traffic crashes (20%);
- Struck by/against events (19%); and
- Assaults (11%).1
- Blasts are a leading cause of TBI for active duty military personnel in war zones.
Who is at highest risk for TBI?
- Males are about 1.5 times as likely as females to sustain a TBI.
- The two age groups at highest risk for TBI are 0 to 4 year olds and 15 to 19 year olds.
- Certain military duties (e.g., paratrooper) increase the risk of sustaining a TBI.
- African Americans have the highest death rate from TBI.
Some people don’t get medical treatment at all for MTBI, but that actually can result in life-long impairment, according to the CDC.
Symptoms of MTBI that may persist include:
- persistent headache
- pain
- fatigue
- vision or hearing problems
- memory loss
What are the long-term consequences of TBI:
At least 5.3 million Americans currently have a long-term or lifelong need for help to perform activities of daily living as a result of a TBI. According to one study, about 40% of those hospitalized with a TBI had at least one unmet need such as:
- Improving memory and problem solving;
- Managing stress and emotional upsets;
- Controlling one’s temper; and
- Improving one’s job skills.
TBI can cause a wide range of functional changes affecting thinking, language, learning, emotions, behavior, and/or sensation. It can also cause epilepsy and increase the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other brain disorders.
To assist physicians in early diagnosis of MTBI, the CDC worked with an expert work group to update and create a tool-kit that contains clinical information to help doctors make the correct diagnosis and treatment.
The toolkit includes:
- a booklet with information on diagnosis and management of MTBI;
- a patient assessment tool (Acute Concussion Evaluation or ACE);
- a care plan to help guide a patient’s recovery;
- fact sheets in English and Spanish on preventing concussion;
- a palm card for the on-field management of sports-related concussion; and
- a CD-ROM with downloadable kit materials and additional MTBI resources.
If physicans can determine if a TBI is mild but still needs some kind of medical monitoring they can ensure that there are no long-term consequences from the injury.
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