Pediatric and Adolescent Concussion Diagnosis, Management, and Outcomes

Between the growing numbers of children and adolescents playing sports and the increased attention to head injuries by the larger sports community and the general public, pediatric concussions are emerging as a major concern. And as practitioners are seeing more young clients with head injuries, questions arise about age-appropriate assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and return to activity. Pediatric and Adolescent Concussion: Diagnosis, Management, and Outcomes offers evidence-based guidelines where few previously existed. This comprehensive volume clearly explains the effects of traumatic injury on the developing brain in sports- and non-sports-related contexts, and establishes a framework for immediate and long-term management, especially the crucial first 24 hours. Chapters provide a basic grounding in its subject with a history of concussion as a medical entity and a review of definitional and classification issues, take the reader through the steps of a neuropsychological evaluation, pinpoint post-injury issues, and offer strategies for the prevention of further or future injury. Pediatric and Adolescent Concussion: Diagnosis, Management, and Outcomes serves as both educational resource and practical framework for a wide array of professionals, including neuropsychologists, sports medicine physicians, child psychologists and psychiatrists, pediatric and family physicians, athletic trainers, social workers, and educators.

Jennifer Apps, Ph.D., is assistant professor, pediatric neuropsychologist, and assistant director for research in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Apps specializes in the evaluation and treatment of children with comorbid emotional and neurological disorders. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and completed post-doctoral training at Children’s Hospital of Dallas. Her primary research interests are in the areas of pediatric sports-related concussions and mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder. She has published articles in professional journals, book chapters, frequently gives both professional and educational lectures on pediatric mental health issues, and most recently co-edited her first book for professionals and parents Pediatric Neuropsychology Case Studies: From the Exceptional to the Commonplace (Springer, in press, 2009)