Parents spend countless hours watching over their toddlers as they learn to navigate through their world, in order to prevent harm from befalling them. According to a recent study, parents have good reason to worry, since the majority of children under two who suffer a serious injury to their brains may do so through falls. Parents in New Mexico and across the country may be interested in learning more about the researchers’ findings.
It is not just young children who can suffer brain injury through falls. After gathering and reanalyzing data on more than 43,000 children who were treated for head injuries in 25 different hospitals across the country, the authors of the study found that children 12 years of age and under were more likely to suffer trauma through a fall. However, for children 13 and over, there were also other modes of injury. Among this age group, 18 percent of brain traumas were the result of car accidents.
One of the goals in determining the causes of head injuries was to also devise safer diagnosis options. Out of the more than 43,300 pediatric patients evaluated, a reported 98 percent were found to have only mild brain trauma. However, many of the patients were subjected to CT scans and other tests of questionable value. Since only 7 percent of the patients suffered a serious injury, the researchers have suggested that observation, in the beginning, may be the best treatment option unless or until other symptoms appear.
While the concern of exposing children to doses of radiation is valid when deciding whether a child should be tested for a possible head injury, parents may feel differently when it comes to securing a prompt and accurate diagnosis. Time is often of the essence when there is a question of whether a serious injury has been inflicted on a child’s brain. If a child has suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of another party’s proven negligence, New Mexico families may seek the recovery of monetary damages by means of a personal injury lawsuit.
Source: claimsjournal.com, “Research Reveals Most Common Causes of Head Injuries in Children“, Nov. 25, 2014
