How To Treat A Bonk On The Head

In the rough and tumble world of being a kid, you're bound  to smack your noggin every once in a while.

Years ago, we used to just watch these kids... and then came the invention of the CT scan. Pretty soon, even the little knot got a big scan.

Sure, as a parent, it's nice to be reassured that there's nothing nasty, like bleeding, going on deep in your kid's brain. But studies show very, very, very few hits to the head cause serious head injury. So you wind up spending a lot of money (or your insurer pays a lot of money)  for a scan -- even worse, you expose your youngster to a bunch of radiation.  It's radiation that generally isn't a problem for a one time scan, but you need to remember that over the course of a lifetime, radiation from a bunch of procedures can add up to trouble (for example, cancer).

So that's why a study in the Journal Pediatrics is a good one for both parents and doctors. It basically says very few kids need to be put in the CT scanner after a bonk to the head. The better course: observation.

Here's the reason -- if something bad is going on, it's going to show up over the course of a few hours after the injury. So if you wind up waiting a bit, and your kid is doing well, you've saved yourself a test that's not necessary. 

The general rule of thumb when it comes to observation: 4-6 hours. That may seem like a long time to hang out in the ER, but it's time well spent if you can spare your child the test.

Which leads to the next question: when does the ER do the observing, and not you? Generally a few reasons for taking your kid to the ER after a head injury include:  1. if your child gets knocked out. 2 is throwing up. 3. confused or acting weird 4. dizziness or off-balance.

The best rule is to get your kid checked if he or she just doesn't seem right -- which means blinding your child with a flashlight to check pupils every few minutes is not the best way to decide whether medical care is needed.