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Mild traumatic brain injury
Author(s) -
Vos P. E.,
Alekseenko Y.,
Battistin L.,
Ehler E.,
Gerstenbrand F.,
Muresanu D. F.,
Potapov A.,
Stepan C. A.,
Traubner P.,
Vecsei L.,
von Wild K.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
european journal of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.881
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1468-1331
pISSN - 1351-5101
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-1331.2011.03581.x
Subject(s) - medicine , traumatic brain injury , glasgow coma scale , guideline , amnesia , pediatrics , head injury , vomiting , intensive care medicine , surgery , psychiatry , pathology
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one among the most frequent neurological disorders. Of all TBIs 90% are considered mild with an annual incidence of 100–300/100 000. Intracranial complications of mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) are infrequent (10%), requiring neurosurgical intervention in a minority of cases (1%), but potentially life threatening (case fatality rate 0.1%). Hence, a true health management problem exists because of the need to exclude the small chance of a life‐threatening complication in a large number of individual patients. The 2002 EFNS guideline used the best evidence approach based on the literature until 2001 to guide initial management with respect to indications for computed tomography (CT), hospital admission, observation and follow‐up of MTBI patients. This updated EFNS guideline for initial management in MTBI proposes a more selective strategy for CT when major [dangerous mechanism, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) < 15, 2 points deterioration on the GCS, clinical signs of (basal) skull fracture, vomiting, anticoagulation therapy, post‐traumatic seizure] or minor (age, loss of consciousness, persistent anterograde amnesia, focal deficit, skull contusion, deterioration on the GCS) risk factors are present based on published decision rules with a high level of evidence. In addition, clinical decision rules for CT now exist for children as well. Since 2001, recommendations, although with a lower level of evidence, have been published for clinical observation in hospitals to prevent and treat other potential threats to the patient including behavioural disturbances (amnesia, confusion and agitation) and infection.