Emergency assessment and management of head injury in adults

Description: Management of head injury in the community, including an outline of the out of hospital resuscitation by paramedical or medical staff using advanced equipment and techniques

Publet Introduction:

Definitions:

  • head injury is defined as traumatic injury to the head or brain
  • for the purposes of this pathway, we consider adults to be those over age 18 years

Epidemiology:

About 250 patients per 100,000 population are admitted to hospital in the UK annually following a head injury (approximately 10-20% of all A&E attendances). Only 20-40% of those admitted following a head injury stay in hospital for more than 48 hours and only 5-10% require neurosurgical transfe. 5% of severe traumatic brain injury will have cervical spine injury

 Information
Guideline Objectives
Target SettingAccident and emergency departments
Target Users
  • Author
  • Release Date
Overview
Provenance7.No provenance has been assigned (default value)
Management
Safety Case
Sources

Based on http://eng.mapofmedicine.com

References

Jennett B. Epidemiology of head injury. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1996; 60: 362-69.