Many US kids with brain injuries not getting rehab

Many children hospitalized in the US for brain injuries don’t receive all the rehabilitation services needed for them to potentially make a full recovery, a new study suggests. Researchers interviewed parents and children four times over two years after kids had a head injury. Overall, children with moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries had greater functional impairments and required more rehab services than kids with mild injuries. But severely injured kids were also more likely to get the help they needed, while more than one in four children with mild brain injuries failed to receive necessary services like educational support, mental health care and treatment from physiatrists — doctors who specialize in addressing brain and spinal cord conditions. “Mild brain injuries are more common than moderate to severe brain injuries, so there are a greater number of children who may be at risk of having unmet health care needs after being hospitalized for a mild brain injury,” said study leader Dr. Molly Fuentes of the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Children’s Research Institute, Center for Child Health “If children are waiting for services to help them recover or learn how to adapt to their new impairments, not only are their long term functional outcomes at risk of being poorer, they are also missing time in school,” Fuentes said by email.