CDC releases guidelines for treating pediatric concussion

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday published clinical guidelines for health care providers treating children with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), also known as concussion. The guidelines, which apply to all practice settings, recommend that providers do not routinely image pediatric patients to diagnose mTBI, but use validated, age-appropriate symptom scales, among other recommendations. “More than 800,000 children seek care for TBI in U.S. emergency departments each year, and until today, there was no evidence-based guideline in the United States on pediatric mTBI – inclusive of all causes,” said Deb Houry, M.D., director of CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. For more on the guidelines and related CDC resources for providers, visit https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/PediatricmTBIGuideline.html.