Journal article
Childhood Falls With Occipital Impacts
Pediatric emergency care, v 34(12), pp 837-841
01 Dec 2018
PMID: 28590993
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Objectives Falls are commonly reported in children who present with both accidental and inflicted brain injuries. Short falls rarely result in serious or life-threatening injuries. Our purpose is to describe a series of cases of short falls with occipital impact leading to subdural hemorrhage (SDH). Methods We present a series of 8 witnessed accounts of young children diagnosed as having SDHs after striking the back of their heads during a short fall. Child-abuse physicians were surveyed to determine if they had evaluated a child younger than 24 months diagnosed as having SDH, with or without retinal hemorrhages, following a witnessed fall with occipital impact. Submitted cases were analyzed. Results The median age of the children was 12.5 months. All fell backward from a standing or seated position onto a hard surface and immediately developed symptoms. There was an average of 4 witnesses per case. Physical examinations were normal; however, the majority of children had enlarged head circumferences. All were previously healthy. Six of 8 children had unilateral convexity SDH. All children had varying degrees of retinal hemorrhage but no retinoschisis. The majority of children had returned to their baseline within 24 hours of hospitalization. Conclusions Although a larger study is needed to identify the full spectrum of injuries, we postulate that, if a history of a fall with an occipital impact is elicited during a trauma workup, accidental injury should be considered.
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Details
- Title
- Childhood Falls With Occipital Impacts
- Creators
- Norrell Atkinson - College Station Medical CenterRick R. van Rijn - Emma KinderziekenhuisSuzanne P. Starling - Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters
- Publication Details
- Pediatric emergency care, v 34(12), pp 837-841
- Publisher
- Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
- Number of pages
- 5
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Pediatrics
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000453071000011
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85020302532
- Other Identifier
- 991021463434404721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Emergency Medicine
- Pediatrics