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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

UCalgary-led study, published in the medical journal Pediatrics, can reduce parental fears:

The angst parents feel when their children sustain injuries is surely one of the universal conditions of parenthood. That anxiety is heightened greatly when those injuries involve concussions. But a new study led out of the University of Calgary, published July 17 in the medical journal Pediatrics [aap.org], may set worried parental minds slightly at ease.

The findings — taken from emergency room visits in children's hospitals in Canada and the United States — show that IQ and intelligence is not affected in a clinically meaningful way by paediatric concussions.

[...] "Obviously there's been a lot of concern about the effects of concussion on children, and one of the biggest questions has been whether or not it affects a child's overall intellectual functioning," says Dr. Keith Yeates, PhD, a professor in UCalgary's Department of Psychology and senior author of the Pediatrics paper. Yeates is a renowned expert on the outcomes of childhood brain disorders, including concussion and traumatic brain injuries.

"The data on this has been mixed and opinions have varied within the medical community," says Yeates. "It's hard to collect big enough samples to confirm a negative finding. The absence of a difference in IQ after concussion is harder to prove than the presence of a difference."

[...] "Understandably, there's been a lot of fear among parents when dealing with their children's concussions," Ware says. "These new findings provide really good news, and we need to get the message to parents."

[...] Another strength of the Pediatrics research is that it incorporates the two cohort studies, one testing patients within days of their concussions and the other after three months.

"That makes our claim even stronger," says Ware. "We can demonstrate that even in those first days and weeks after concussion, when children do show symptoms such as a pain and slow processing speed, there's no hit to their IQs. Then it's the same story three months out, when most children have recovered from their concussion symptoms.

"Thanks to this study we can say that, consistently, we would not expect IQ to be diminished from when children are symptomatic to when they've recovered."

She adds: "It's a nice 'rest easy' message for the parents."

Journal Reference:
Ashley L. Ware, et al., IQ After Pediatric Concussion, Pediatrics (2023) 152 (2): e2022060515. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2022-060515 [doi.org]

Original Submission