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Updated: Jul 12, 2026
A Novel Model of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury for Juvenile Rats
Published on: December 8, 2014
Predicting and improving outcome in severe pediatric traumatic brain injury
Mathilde Chevignard1,2,3, Hugo Câmara-Costa1,2,3, Georges Dellatolas3
1Rehabilitation Department for Children with Acquired Neurological Injury, Saint Maurice Hospitals, Saint Maurice, France.
Insights
Severe pediatric traumatic brain injury (spTBI), a significant public health issue, leads to lasting physical and cognitive deficits. Research highlights disparities in care and outcomes, emphasizing family-focused interventions for long-term recovery.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Neurology
- Neurotrauma
- Public Health
Background:
- Severe pediatric traumatic brain injury (spTBI), including abusive head trauma (AHT), presents substantial long-term physical, neurological, cognitive, behavioral, and social challenges.
- spTBI is a critical public health concern with significant lifelong consequences for affected children.
Purpose of the Study:
- To provide a comprehensive narrative review of spTBI, covering causes, epidemiology, critical care, outcomes, and interventions.
- To synthesize current research from 2019-2024, including seminal prior work, on spTBI management and long-term effects.
Main Methods:
- Narrative review of published studies and reviews on spTBI from January 2019 to February 2024.
- Inclusion of significant pre-2019 papers to provide historical context and foundational knowledge.
Main Results:
- Significant disparities exist in spTBI causes, treatments, and outcomes based on country and socioeconomic factors.
- Abusive head trauma (AHT) is associated with poor outcomes, and adherence to critical care guidelines requires improvement.
- Neuroimaging and biomarkers are evolving predictors of outcomes, with long-term cognitive and psychosocial difficulties being the most prevalent and disabling.
Conclusions:
- Distinguishing between objective and subjective measures is crucial for assessing long-term difficulties post-spTBI.
- Family/caregiver-centered interventions, ecological approaches, and technology-assisted delivery are recommended to mitigate long-term challenges.
- Further investigation into the evidence base for critical care guidelines is warranted.
Introduction:
Severe pediatric traumatic brain injury (spTBI), including abusive head trauma (AHT) in young children, is a major public health problem. Long-term consequences of spTBI include a large variety of physical, neurological, biological, cognitive, behavioral and social deficits and impairments.
Areas Covered:
The present narrative review summarizes studies and reviews published from January 2019 to February 2024 on spTBI. Significant papers published before 2019 were also included. The article gives coverage to the causes of spTBI, its epidemiology and fatality rates; disparities, inequalities, and socioeconomic factors; critical care; outcomes; and interventions.
Expert Opinion:
There are disparities between countries and according to socio-economic factors regarding causes, treatments and outcomes of spTBI. AHT has an overall poor outcome. Adherence to critical care guidelines is imperfect and the evidence-base of guidelines needs further investigations. Neuroimaging and biomarker predictors of outcomes is a rapidly evolving domain. Long-term cognitive, behavioral and psychosocial difficulties are the most prevalent and disabling. Their investigation should make a clear distinction between objective (clinical examination, cognitive tests, facts) and subjective measures (estimations using patient- and proxy-reported questionnaires), considering possible common source bias in reported difficulties. Family/caregiver-focused interventions, ecological approaches, and use of technology in delivery of interventions are recommended to improve long-term difficulties after spTBI.
