142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

315986
Gold standard of care for concussion for children presenting to the emergency department

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 5:30 PM - 5:50 PM

Shireen Atabaki, MD, MPH , George Washington University, Children’s National Health System, Washington, DC
There are 1.7 million traumatic brain injuries in the United States each year. Mild traumatic brain injury or concussion, accounts for over 600,000 pediatric visits to Emergency Departments (EDs) annually. Children can suffer for up to two years with severe headaches, difficulty concentrating, depression, interrupted school attendance, and re-injury in sports when concussion is not diagnosed and managed appropriately. Recurrent concussion has been linked to long-term cognitive impairment, neurodegenerative disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Children with concussion benefit from a graduated return to academics and sports with recovery. In a nationwide study, we documented the majority of children with concussion are discharged from the ED and returned to school with inadequate recommendations for management. Underserved urban patients are at increased risk of loss to follow-up and lack of information on the need for self and family symptom monitoring.  Health IT is emerging as an effective disease management tool in minority children and families. ED-initiated programs of symptom monitoring and management that allow the child, family school nurse and ED team to identify and monitor concussion symptoms as well as the graduated return to academics and sports, based on symptom and behavior monitoring, can guide recovery for underserved children.

Learning Areas:

Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs

Learning Objectives:
Discuss the current state of emergency department care for children with concussion. Describe the gold standard of care for concussion for children presenting to the emergency department.

Keyword(s): Traumatic Brain Injury, Youth

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have expertise in traumatic brain injury. I have been the PI and co PI for studies on the development of clinical decision rules for assessment and follow-up of concussions. I lead the HITS for Kids Program (Health IT solutions for kids), a national initiative to improve concussion care for children by knowledge translation of evidence based medicine harnessing the electronic health record and health IT, which brings the best medicine to the patient's bedside.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.