CDC Brain Injury Statistics

The epidemiology and impact of traumatic brain injury is reported by the Centers for Disease Control in the September-October issue of the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, Vol 21, No 5, and the picture is far from pretty.

Here is a summary of the alarming report of a true public health crisis:

• Globally, at least 10 million traumatic brain injuries occur annually which result in either serious injury or death.
• In the United States, an average of 1.4 million TBI's occur each year, but this number is really an underestimate of the true magnitude of traumatic brain injuries because it does not take into account persons treated for TBI in doctor's offices or in hospital clinics.
• Males are twice as likely as females to experience a traumatic brain injury with the largest age groups being children 0 to 4 years, adolescents aged 15 to 19 years and for hospitalizations, senior citizens 75 years of age or older.
• As many as 87% of persons incarcerated in prison report a history of head injury.
• The leading causes of TBI are falls, motor vehicle crashes, being struck or banging your head against an object and assaults.
• Concussions in sporting activities are severely underestimated using existing national data sets since most information comes from studies that only take into account an injury where there is a loss of consciousness.  This may only account for 8 to 19% of all concussions in sports. Taking into account a more accurate definition of concussion, the CDC estimates that there can be as many as 1.6 million to 3.8 million sports related TBI's each year.

Here is what the CDC is what the CDC says about the long term consequences of brain injury:

"Traumatic brain injury can result in longterm or lifelong physical, cognitive, behavior and emotional consequences.  Even mild TBI, including concussion, can cause long-term cognitive problems that affect a person's ability to perform daily activities and return to work.  As a result of these consequences, TBI is one of the most disabling injuries."

Pretty frightening evidence from the CDC that more attention and research must be devoted to this public health crisis.