Child Athletes Suffering Concussions Doubles in US
The number of young athletes who visits the emergency room (ER) because of concussions doubles in the last five years according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Figures of those who suffer head injury not only came from high school students but more from middle age school and elementary student. Roughly, 40% of pediatric concussion cases involve children 8 to 13 years old.
Hospital ERs has combined the number of children rushed because of head injury sums up to 502,000 cases from 2001 to 2005. Half of the numbers were sport’s related and due to recreational activities.
Research team from the Rhode Island noted that the spike in the number of sport related head trauma go against the backdrop decline of the participation in organized sports amid youth for those years.
The World Health Organization classifies concussion as mild traumatic brain injury.
Christopher Giza, a pediatric neurology from UCLA sated that the numbers given by the research was not actually the true number of incident but is the only count made in the hospital.
In this regard, the American Academy of Pediatrics published the updated version of “clinical report” where the care for concussion in adolescents and adults were provided.
CDC estimated a number of 3.8 million sports and recreation related head injuries per year in US.
Giza said that the piling numbers of cases of concussions would prompt coaches and other concerns to address a more conservative approach to manage and control cases like this.
Parents, coaches, and physicians should be provided with guidelines to evaluate cases of concussions in younger ages to manage cases such cases better as added by the Rhode Island researchers.
The state of Washington was the first to past legislature requiring any young athlete who is suspected to suffer from head concussion be taken out from the game not until cleared by a license practitioner.
