{"id":14,"date":"2010-01-22T10:44:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T10:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/why-doctors-shouldn%e2%80%99t-be-too-quick-to-diagnose-a-child-with-a-concussion-rather-than-mild-traumatic-brain-injury.html"},"modified":"2010-01-22T10:44:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T10:44:00","slug":"why-doctors-shouldn%e2%80%99t-be-too-quick-to-diagnose-a-child-with-a-concussion-rather-than-mild-traumatic-brain-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/why-doctors-shouldn%e2%80%99t-be-too-quick-to-diagnose-a-child-with-a-concussion-rather-than-mild-traumatic-brain-injury.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Doctors Shouldn\u2019t Be Too Quick To Diagnose a Child With a Concussion Rather than Mild Traumatic Brain Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"I have been fighting the labels and the distinctions about what you call the subtle damage to the mind as long as I have been an advocate.  See my essay &#8220;Mind Damage&#8221; at <a href=\"http:\/\/tbilaw.com\/essays.aaname.php\">http:\/\/tbilaw.com\/essays.aaname.php<\/a>  Yet, according to new research, the labels make a huge difference in the perception of the severity of the injury.<br \/><br \/>According to this research, doctors apparently have to choose their words carefully when they\u2019re talking to parents about their children\u2019s head injuries.  The study was published online this week by Pediatrics, the journal for the American Academy of Pediatrics. The study received a lot of play in the consumer press, with outlets such as The Los Angeles Times and UPI writing about it. See <a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/booster_shots\/2010\/01\/you-say-concussion-i-say-brain-injury-lets-call-the-whole-thing-serious.html\">http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/booster_shots\/2010\/01\/you-say-concussion-i-say-brain-injury-lets-call-the-whole-thing-serious.html<\/a><br \/><br \/>The bottom line of the research was that when a physician uses the term \u201cconcussion\u201d rather than \u201cmild traumatic brain injury,\u201d parents don\u2019t seem to believe that their child\u2019s brain has really been damaged. <br \/><br \/>The Pediatrics article was headlined \u201cMy Child Doesn\u2019t Have a Brain Injury, He Only Has a Concussion.\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/pediatrics.aappublications.org\/cgi\/content\/abstract\/peds.2008-2720v1\">http:\/\/pediatrics.aappublications.org\/cgi\/content\/abstract\/peds.2008-2720v1<\/a><br \/><br \/>The research, conducted at McMaster Children\u2019s Hospital in Canada by McMaster University, noted that doctors may choose to use \u201cthe concussion label\u201d because it\u2019s less alarming than the term mild brain injury. But the word \u201cconcussion\u201d seems to imply to the parents that the injury is not serious and will have no long-term consequences for their child, the study found. Yet it\u2019s known that\u2019s not the case.<br \/><br \/>\u201cOur study suggests that if a child is given a diagnosis of a concussion, the family is less likely to consider it an actual injury to the brain,\u201d the study\u2019s lead author, Carol DeMatteo, said in a press release on the research. \u201cThese children may be sent back to school or allowed to return to activity sooner, and maybe sooner than they should. This just puts them at greater risk for a second injury, poor school performance, and wondering what is wrong with them.\u201d<br \/><br \/>Children diagnosed with a concussion were released earlier from the hospital, and returned to school quicker, according to the study. Yet it\u2019s known that concussions can have serious after effects, including depression, memory issues and headaches. And returning to former activities, such as sports, before the brain damage of a concussion has healed can lead to dire health problems. <br \/><br \/>The concussion diagnosis was \u201csignificantly more likely\u201d when the computed-tomography results were normal and the child had lost consciousness, according to the study.<br \/><br \/>The takeaway has to be that physicians should not be too quick to label a child as having a concussion, even if it is a less worrisome term than mile TBI.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been fighting the labels and the distinctions about what you call the subtle damage to the mind as long as I have been an advocate. See my essay &#8220;Mind Damage&#8221; at http:\/\/tbilaw.com\/essays.aaname.php Yet, according to new research, the labels make a huge difference in the perception of the severity of the injury.According to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,4,6,42,43],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brain-injury","tag-brain-injury-attorney","tag-brain-injury-lawyer","tag-concussion-brain-injury-label-makes-difference","tag-pediatric-brain-injury"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Doctors Shouldn\u2019t Be Too Quick To Diagnose a Child With a Concussion Rather than Mild Traumatic Brain Injury - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/waiting.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/why-doctors-shouldn\u2019t-be-too-quick-to-diagnose-a-child-with-a-concussion-rather-than-mild-traumatic-brain-injury.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Doctors Shouldn\u2019t Be Too Quick To Diagnose a Child With a Concussion Rather than Mild Traumatic Brain Injury - Brain Injury Lawyer Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have been fighting the labels and the distinctions about what you call the subtle damage to the mind as long as I have been an advocate. 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