Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Characteristics and Symptoms in Preschool Children: How Do They Differ to School Age Children? A Multicenter Prospective Observational Study

Objective: To investigate if preschool children differ to school age children with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) with respect to injury causes, clinical presentation, and medical management. Design: A secondary analysis of a dataset from a large, prospective and multisite cohort study on TBI in children aged 0-18 years, the Australian Paediatric Head Injury Rules Study. Setting: Nine pediatric emergency departments (ED) and 1 combined adult and pediatric ED located across Australia and New Zealand. Participants: 7080 preschool aged children (2-5 years) were compared with 5251 school-age children (6-12 years) with mild TBI (N= (N=12,331) Main Outcome Measures: Clinical report form on medical symptoms, injury causes, and management. Results: Preschool children were less likely to be injured with a projectile than school age children (P<.001). Preschool children presented with less: loss of consciousness (P<.001), vomiting (P<.001), drowsiness (P=.002), and headache (P<.001), and more irritability and agitation (P=.003), than school-age children in the acute period after mild TBI. Preschool children were less likely to have neuroimaging of any kind (P<.001) or to be admitted for observation than school age children (P<.001). Conclusions: Our large prospective study has demonstrated that preschool children with mild TBI experience a different acute symptom profile to older children. There are significant clinical implications with symptoms post-TBI used in medical management to aid decisions on neuroimaging and post-acute intervention. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2024;105:120-4 (c) 2023 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.