What should I know about brain injuries and kids?

Brain injuries can happen to virtually anyone in California, including children. While experiencing a traumatic brain injury is devastating for adults, it can be even more so for children who often fail to grasp the severity of their situation. Accordingly, the following information is crucial if your child has suffered from significant brain trauma and is struggling cope.

According to the Brain Injury Association of America, recovery from brain injury is often more difficult for kids. This is because children tend to suffer from delayed effects as their cognitive development advances. These effects can impact things like judgment, the ability to reason and information processing. Issues with development can affect kids more significantly because their brains are not fully developed at the time of injury.

Despite these challenges, getting immediate medical treatment for kids with brain injuries can help lessen any potential effects. To this end, you must be able to recognize the common signs and symptoms of serious head trauma. A range of effects can occur, each of which will have a specific impact on an area of the body or psyche. For instance, problems with cognitive faculties can be identified by things like a shortened attention span and impeded thinking. Physical effects can also occur, and these typically include trouble maintaining balance, sensory difficulties (which affects vision and hearing) and persistent headaches.

While you can’t always prevent your child from incurring a severe brain injury, there are steps you can take to lessen the risk. Maintain safety at home by protecting children from steep staircases or accidental falls from windows by using suitable barriers. Additionally, only frequent those playgrounds and amusement areas that utilize the right safety features. Proper motor vehicle safety is also crucial. Older kids must always wear their seatbelts and smaller children should be strapped into the appropriate child safety seat depending on their size (which can be determined by their height and weight).