1) Tung, G. A., Kumar, M., Richardson, R. C., Jenny, C., & Brown, W. D. (2006). Comparison of accidental and nonaccidental traumatic head injury in children on noncontrast computed tomography. Pediatrics, 118(2), 626–633.
This study looked at differences in the CT scans of children who had accidental and nonaccidental head injuries. The scans that were looked at came from children ranging from 1 week to 6.5 years old. Since patients with nonaccidental head injuries often have a subdural hematoma (SDH), the study aimed to find any pattern in density or location when it came to these patients. This would help doctors identify if the child was abused or not. They found that hyperdense SDH is significantly more common in accidental head injuries while mixed density SDH is more common in nonaccidental injuries. However, nothing is able to be specified due to the several factors so, it is important to not make inferences on CT scans.
2) C. Di Scala, S. Osberg, B.M. Gans, L.J. Chin and C.C. (1991). Children with traumatic head injury: morbidity and postacute treatment. Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 72, 662–666.
This study aimed to describe and identify pediatric head injuries and the extent of the damage a head injury could lead to. They looked at children from newborns to 20 years however, they split them up into age groups. They found that is smaller children, the biggest impairment they faced was the inability to walk after the head trauma. However, some children had issues with walking, talking, and cognition. This study also found inconsistent discharge decisions where some children with a few impairments were discharged into rehabilitation quickly where whereas some were discharged to go home under the care of a guardian.
3)Pigula, F. A., Wald, S. L., Shackford, S. R., & Vane, D. W. (1993). The effect of hypotension and hypoxia on children with severe head injuries. Journal of pediatric surgery, 28(3), 310–316.
This study wanted to see if children going into a hypoxic state before receiving treatment have a higher mortality rate than children who do not. The study looked at kids 16 years old and younger. They found that the lower the Glasgow coma scale (GCS), the higher the mortality rate for children across all ages. The kids that had hypotension had a mortality rate of 61% whereas those with hypoxia had a 21% mortality rate. This shows that treatment of possible hypertension can be critical to the survival of the patient.
4) Miller JD, Sweet RC, Narayan R, Becker DP. (1978). Early Insults to the Injured Brain. JAMA. 240(5),439–442.
This study looked at 100 patients who after being resuscitated after a head injury was unable to give a verbal response. People who fulfilled the criteria for brain death were excluded. This study did not look at children but looked at the importance of early/on-scene care. They concluded that patients in vehicle accidents should be admitted to a trauma center first instead of the closest hospital since early care is so important.
5) Jorge RE, Robinson R, Arndt S, Starkstein S, Forrester A, Geisler F. (1993). Depression following traumatic brain injury: a 1-year longitudinal study. Journal of Affective Disorders. 27 (4), 233-243.
This study looked at 66 patients with TBI and how they were doing 3, 6, 9 and 12 months after their injury. 28 patients met the criteria for major depressive disorder however, some patients only had transient depression. those patients were no longer depressed after the 3 month follow-up. They found that the transient depressive syndromes were associated with basal ganglia lesions. However, there is no conclusive evidence that a TBI will cause long term depression.
6) Riemann L, Zweckberger K, Unterberg A, El Damaty A, Younsi A and the Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury (CENTER-TBI) Investigators and Participants. (2020). Injury Causes and Severity in Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury Patients Admitted to the Ward or Intensive Care Unit: A Collaborative European Neurotrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury (CENTER-TBI), Frontiers in Neurology. 11, 345.
In this retrospective study, children 18 and under were included. In this study, most of the injuries that were included consisted of street injuries as well as various sports injuries. The study talks about the difficulties of generalizing the effects of TBI because there are so many factors to consider. These factors include, absorbtion of traumatic forces as well as acceleration of the head. They found that road accidents were the most common cause of severe TBIs.
7) Purcell LN, Reiss R, Eaton J, Kumwenda K, Quinsey C, Charles A. (2020). Survival and functional outcomes at discharge after traumatic brain injury in children versus adults in resource-poor setting. World Neurosurgery. 137,597-602.
This study looks at TBI in Malawi because it is the primary cause of trauma mortality in that geographical area. The study wanted to determine the odds of favorable outcomes if the patients were treated for significant issues. In this study, more adults died than pediatric patients. And interestingly the GCS scores did not differ that much between pediatric and adult patients. This study shows that in Malwai there is a higher chance of pediatric patients surviving a TBI and it could be due to resiliency that children often have.
8) Hendrickson, Sherry L. RN, MSN. (1987). Intracranial Pressure Changes and Family Presence. Journal of Neuroscience Nursing. 19(1), 14-17.
This study used consenting patients who were admitted into the ICU. They wanted to see how familial presence affected ICP. They saw that almost 1/3 of patients had significant improvements in ICP when their family visited. In the cases that had no or worse effects, the changes were nonsignificant. The study then goes on to discuss the importance of proper care since some people can improve with family. However, the biggest flaw of this paper is that the sample size was 24 people due to not enough funding and people giving consent to having their relative being checked more often.
9) Liu, Y.C., Chen, I.C., Yin. H.L., et al. (2023). Comparisons of characteristics and outcome between abusive head trauma and non-abusive head trauma in a pediatric intensive care unit. Journal of the Formosan Medical Association.
This study looked at patients admitted into pediatric ICU and looked at the differences between AHT and nAHT. They looked at clinical outcomes as well as risk factors. They found that the clinical outcomes of AHT was worse than nAHT when it came to consious changes, seizures and weakness. However, they found that skull fractures are equally as common. Most of the AHT patients ended up having to take anti-epileptic drugs after being discharges where as nAHT did not often have to take that medication.
10) Kato, M., Nonaka, M., Akutsu, N., Narisawa, A., Harada, A., & Park, Y. S. (2023). Correlations of intracranial pathology and cause of head injury with retinal hemorrhage in infants and toddlers: A multicenter, retrospective study by the J-HITs (Japanese Head injury of Infants and Toddlers study) group. PloS one, 18(3).
This retrospective study aimed to find what was the primary cause of retinal hemorrhaging (RH). They looked at CT scans and MRIs of children under the age of four in Japan. All of the patients they used underwent ophthalmic examination. Shaking a baby could cause the eyes to shake causing RH or intracranial pressure could cause RH. During the study, they found that most of the patients with RH had a nonaccidental tbi. In most cases, if the non-accidental group had RH they would also suffer from a subdural hematoma. However, since they could only look at scans of patients, they do not know how often RH occurs when intracranial pressure is not diagnosed. Also, self-inflicted falls also increases the odds of RH. Most of the self inflicted falls with subdural hematoma and RH happened to be boys between nine and eleven months.