Concussion Symptoms

I know at this age your kids are probably running around bumping into things and falling all the time. I can't even begin to tell you how many times my boys fall down these days, and about once a day they bonk themselves pretty hard.

In the other thread about the babies having no fears, I mentioned keeping a flashlight handy to test for concussions after after hard falls. One technique I learned for checking for concussions is to shine a flashlight in the injured child's eyes. If the pupils (the black part) of the eyes, don't dilate (get smaller) when the light is shined in them and dilate again (get bigger) once the light is removed, then the child may have a concussion. Apparently, it's also a sign of a concussion if the eyes do not dilate evenly, so if one pupil is wide open and the other is not, that's potential sign. In the past 3 weeks I've gotten out the flashlight 3 times to check Mark for concussion symptoms, and I felt reassured after checking his eyes.

Obviously, that's not the only thing you look for. This site from the University of Michigan list several symptoms. Of course, the problem with a small child is that you cannot always tell how serious their symptoms are, so if you see any of these things after an injury you should go to the emergency room or your doctor.

 

Thank you for posting this. Piper falls down all the time (she's my accident prone one) so I should probably keep a flashlight handy!

 

Rachel, thank you for sharing this! This is good for me to know when DH is not around. I always wondered why he did the flashlight thing when the kids would hit their heads (and dummy me never thought to ask, I thought he was trying to distract them)!

 

Thanks!

 

You're quite welcome ladies. I had totally forgotten about this, and for some reason it came back to me after one of Mark's many falls.

My wish is that nobody has to use their flashlight for this purpose, but with toddlers, you're gonna get some hard falls, and it's better to be prepared.

 

I'm going to start this out by saying that I am NOT a doctor. I am, however, a neuroscience/trauma nurse & work with LOTS of people with concussions/head injuries....including children.

The flashlight is a good tool to check for head injury, although chances are you won't see an immediate response if there is a problem. At ANY point that a child would show ANY signs of uneven pupils or unreactive pupils, I would IMMEDIATELY have them seen. It would take a pretty hard blow to create those symptoms & I can honestly say that I've never checked my kids eyes.

Much more common symptoms of concussions in younger kids are nausea/vomiting, lethargy (sleeping too much), loss of appetite, loss of balance, headache, & confusion. ANY time a child loses consciousness, they need to be seen...even if it's just brief.

So, while I think the flashlight is a good tool, I think watching for the other symptoms is probably more important. Testing the pupils detects brain swelling or bleeding, which is not something you'd IMMEDIATELY see with a mild injury (a massive injury would be detected quickly, but if your child was THAT hurt, I'm sure you'd be on the phone with 911 before checking their pupils!). If you're worried & wish to use the flashlight, check their eyes periodically AFTER their fall too. Swelling is usually gradual & can be detected hours later.

Again, I'm not a doctor. This info is just based on my schooling & prior experiences. Obviously, if you have ANY concerns, have a doctor examine your child. Hopefully it's just a mild conk on the head....lucky for us, kids have flexible skulls!!!!

 

QUOTE(nurseandrea02 @ May 21 2009, 07:51 PM) [snapback]1323592[/snapback]
Much more common symptoms of concussions in younger kids are nausea/vomiting, lethargy (sleeping too much), loss of appetite, loss of balance, headache, & confusion. ANY time a child loses consciousness, they need to be seen...even if it's just brief.

Yeah, I hope I made that clear from the original post The link has several of those and even a few more.

 

Back in Jan. my 13 year old flipped my 3 yr old and he ended up hitting the back of his head really hard. He was bleeding so we took him to Emergency. No concussion, and he could have had stitches if he would have sat still. Anyways, I noticed two days after the bang that his eyes were just not working right. Slight cross eyes, but only noticed it every once in awhile. Over time it got worse to where other people could see what I was talking about. He is now set to see a Pediatric Ophthalmologist in Winnipeg in July. It's possible it was cause by the hit to the head, but we will never really know for certain. Just wanted to add it is important to keep an "eye" on them days after a good fall.

Thanks Rachel and Andrea for the information.

 

QUOTE(pamallhoney @ May 21 2009, 10:57 PM) [snapback]1323848[/snapback]
Back in Jan. my 13 year old flipped my 3 yr old and he ended up hitting the back of his head really hard. He was bleeding so we took him to Emergency. No concussion, and he could have had stitches if he would have sat still. Anyways, I noticed two days after the bang that his eyes were just not working right. Slight cross eyes, but only noticed it every once in awhile. Over time it got worse to where other people could see what I was talking about. He is now set to see a Pediatric Ophthalmologist in Winnipeg in July. It's possible it was cause by the hit to the head, but we will never really know for certain. Just wanted to add it is important to keep an "eye" on them days after a good fall.

Thanks Rachel and Andrea for the information.

Wow that's scary. You'll have to update us when you find out.

 

QUOTE(nurseandrea02 @ May 21 2009, 04:51 PM) [snapback]1323592[/snapback]
I'm going to start this out by saying that I am NOT a doctor. I am, however, a neuroscience/trauma nurse & work with LOTS of people with concussions/head injuries....including children.

The flashlight is a good tool to check for head injury, although chances are you won't see an immediate response if there is a problem. At ANY point that a child would show ANY signs of uneven pupils or unreactive pupils, I would IMMEDIATELY have them seen. It would take a pretty hard blow to create those symptoms & I can honestly say that I've never checked my kids eyes.

Much more common symptoms of concussions in younger kids are nausea/vomiting, lethargy (sleeping too much), loss of appetite, loss of balance, headache, & confusion. ANY time a child loses consciousness, they need to be seen...even if it's just brief.

So, while I think the flashlight is a good tool, I think watching for the other symptoms is probably more important. Testing the pupils detects brain swelling or bleeding, which is not something you'd IMMEDIATELY see with a mild injury (a massive injury would be detected quickly, but if your child was THAT hurt, I'm sure you'd be on the phone with 911 before checking their pupils!). If you're worried & wish to use the flashlight, check their eyes periodically AFTER their fall too. Swelling is usually gradual & can be detected hours later.

Again, I'm not a doctor. This info is just based on my schooling & prior experiences. Obviously, if you have ANY concerns, have a doctor examine your child. Hopefully it's just a mild conk on the head....lucky for us, kids have flexible skulls!!!!





Thank you for posting. I was thinking the exact same thing as we just experienced our first big fall last week. I immediately called my sister who is a Nurse Practitioner. I always heard about the pupil test but she explained how that was the last and final symptom that something is seriously wrong. The questions she asked me was “did she cry right away” (this is a positive thing) “did she take her next bottle” “did she stop crying after a few minutes and is she happy now” (a sign of no headache). We called our doctor too and the only new thing she added was to wake her after a few hours to make sure she was okay (her fall was a couple of hours before bedtime).
I guess I should get used to bad falls! :huh:

 

Thank you for posting this. We had a bad fall a couple of months ago and I rushed him to the dr. because it was just scary and I didn't know what else to do. He was fine but like Andrea said, they gave me a list of things to look for over the next few days. This is a good post! Thanks!