(Reuters) – some children may have problems with memory and attention until a year later of having suffered a concussion, a problem that can be linked to a lower quality of life and a higher risk of needing extra help at the school, according to an American study.
A shock with big difference is the most common form of brain injury, increasingly receives more attention in the media, and million U.S. children suffer one every year, although many of them do not go to the hospital, said Keith Yeates, of the National Pediatric Hospital in Ohio, who worked on the study.
“Our study sample very convincingly that the vast majority of children are doing very well after suffering a mild brain trauma,” said Yeates.
“The not so good news is that there is a small group of children who have symptoms until a year after the injury”.
In the study, which appeared in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Yeates and his companions continued to 186 children aged between eight and 15 years who came to the ER with a concussion.
Children with brain lesions were more likely to have both “somatic” symptoms such as headache, fatigue and problems with balance, as cognitive symptoms such as lack of memory and attention problems.
Somatic symptoms tended to decrease over time, but in some cases cognitive problems persisted, particularly in those children who have lost the knowledge when beaten head or had abnormal results in magnetic resonance imaging.
Yeates estimated that 10 to 15 percent of children with loss of consciousness he continued to have cognitive problems during the months following injury.
Study is based on assessments of parents about their children symptoms and it cannot prove that the symptoms were necessarily caused by brain injury. But Yeates said he was sure the claim because the symptoms were more common in severe injuries. Source: http://bit.ly/zuq8bp
