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mishaps. Luckily, it appears that more parents know what to do next.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently concluded in a study that emergency room visits by children had risen by 60 percent from 2001 through 2009. The CDC said this was not the result of more injuries, but instead a greater awareness of the need to have children examined for traumatic brain injuries and concussions after an accident.
The study found that the number of recorded head injuries from 2001 to 2009, increased from 153,375 to 248,418 respectively, which may be a good thing.
“These injuries were always there. It’s not that there are more injuries now. It’s just that now people are getting treatment that they weren’t getting before,” the interim director of the University of North Carolina’s Injury Prevention and Research Center said in an interview with USA Today.
The study found the two main causes of head injuries to be sports and playground activities. Younger children, under the age of 10, were the most likely to have to go to a hospital emergency room for head injuries because of playground accidents.
Older kids were more likely to be injured while playing sports. Football injuries were an especially common cause of head trauma in high school males, as well as in males ages 10 to 19 generally. Females had the most head injuries in soccer and basketball, the study found.
Researchers cautioned parents that it is very important to have children examined at a hospital or doctor’s office after any kind of accident or injury, particularly head injuries. When head injuries go untreated, there is a greater likelihood that they will cause permanent damage.
So remember, if your child suffers a head injury, whether it is in a car accident or while playing at the park, make sure to take the child in for an examination. It could save his or her life.
Source: Time, “Kids’ ER Visits for Head Injury on the Rise – Why That’s a Good Thing,” Meredith Melnick, Oct. 7, 2011.