Thursday, June 27, 2013

One in five students in Grades 7-12 say they have had a traumatic brain injury in their lifetime

http://www.stmichaelshospital.com/media/detail.php?source=hospital_news/2013/20130625a_hn

Toronto, June 25, 2013
By Leslie Shepherd

One in five adolescents surveyed in Ontario said they have suffered a traumatic brain injury that left them unconscious for five minutes or required them to be hospitalized overnight, a statistic researchers in Toronto say is much higher than previously thought.

Sports such as ice hockey and soccer accounted for more than half the injuries, said Dr. Gabriela Ilie, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral fellow at St. Michael’s Hospital.

Traumatic brain injuries, such as concussions, were reported more often by males than females, by those with lower school grades and by those who used alcohol or cannabis in the previous 12 months, she said.

The study was to be published Wednesday (June 26) in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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The survey found that 20 per cent of adolescents in Ontario said they had had a traumatic brain injury in their lifetime. It found that 5.6 per cent of them had had such an injury in the past 12 months.

Dr. Ilie said this suggests the prevalence of TBI among young people is much higher than previously known, because many head injuries remain uncounted when they are not being reported to parents, teachers, sports coaches or health care workers. In Canada, 50 per cent of all injuries that kill and disable youth involve a TBI.

This new research found that 46.9 per cent of the TBIs reported by adolescent females occurred during sports (e.g., hockey, skate boarding); the figure was 63.5 per cent for males.

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Brain injuries among adolescents are particularly concerning because their brains are still developing. There is growing evidence that people who have had one or more concussions are at greater risk of future concussions, and evidence that multiple brain injuries can result in lasting cognitive impairment, substance use, mental health and physical health harms.

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