Management and Evaluation of Head Trauma

Abstract

Various specialists who deal with the prevention, treatment, care, and rehabilitation of head injuries have recognized for years the magnitude of the problem. However, it was under the leadership of Dr. Murray Goldstein, Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health, that an organized effort on a national basis was begun to give widespread attention to the head injury “epidemic” problem. Dr. Goldstein’s efforts resulted in the formation of the Intra-agency Head Injury Task Force, with its first formal report published in June of 1989 (Goldstein, 1990). This report gives startling figures: “someone receives a head injury every fifteen seconds in the United States. A conservative estimate puts the total of head injuries at over two million per year, with 500,000 severe enough to require hospital admission. Seventy-five thousand to 100,000 persons die each year as a result of brain injury. It is the leading cause of disability in children and young adults and is also the principal cause of brain damage in young adults. Five thousand new cases of epilepsy caused by head trauma are reported each year. Related medical and legal bills often leave families with near or total financial ruin. The economic cost alone approaches 25 billion dollars per year.”