Heads Up: Brain Injury in Your Practice
A Tool Kit for Physicians
An estimated 75%-90% of the 1.4 million traumatic brain injury-related deaths, hospitalizations, and emergency department visits that occur each year are concussions or mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI).
Many individuals who sustain an MTBI are not hospitalized or receive no medical care at all. An unknown proportion of those who are not hospitalized may experience long-term problems such as persistent headache, pain, fatigue, vision or hearing problems, memory problems, confusion, sleep disturbances, or mood changes. Symptoms of MTBI or concussion may appear mild, but can lead to significant, life-long impairment affecting an individual's ability to function physically, cognitively, and psychologically.
Physicians can play a key role in helping to prevent MTBI or concussion and improve a patient's health outcomes through early diagnosis, management, and appropriate referral.
In response, CDC, in collaboration with an expert work group, has recently updated and revised the "Heads Up: Brain Injury in Your Practice" tool kit. This tool kit is available free-of-charge and contains practical, easy-to-use clinical information and tools, including:
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a booklet with information on diagnosis and management of MTBI;
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a patient assessment tool (Acute Concussion Evaluation or ACE);
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a care plan to help guide a patient's recovery;
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fact sheets in English and Spanish on preventing concussion;
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a palm card for the on-field management of sports-related concussion; and
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a CD-ROM with downloadable kit materials and additional MTBI resources.
To order a free tool kit, click here.
View and download kit materials
(PDFs require
Adobe Acrobat Reader)
| Information for Physicians: | Information for Patients: |
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Heads Up! Concussion Information for Physicians
Download as a podcast |
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"The
Acute Concussion Evaluation or ACE is an
innovative assessment tool that can be used for
the initial evaluation and diagnosis of patients
with known or suspected concussion." Dr. Jean Langlois, CDC |
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CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control-the Injury Center-invites your comments about the
"Heads Up: Brain Injury in Your Practice" tool kit. We are especially interested in knowing which materials you found most useful and your recommendations for ways to improve the tool kit. To provide comments, please
e-mail us at
ncipcdirinfo@cdc.gov.
* Links to non-Federal organizations found at this site are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.
Please note: Some of these publications are available for download only as *.pdf files. These files require Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to be viewed. Please review the information on downloading and using Acrobat Reader software.
Page last modified: June 14, 2007