Adolescent Mild Traumatic Brain Injury in Primary Care

• Mild traumatic brain injury can be insidious and have a wide range of symptoms/effects, physically, cognitively, psychologically, and socially.
• Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to injury at a very influential time in their lives.
• Primary care providers play an integral part of assisting their clients with coping during the postconcussion process.

The issue of mild traumatic brain injury has been an underdiagnosed problem for many years. This was frequently due to a lack of insight that, although there was no evidence of injury on computed tomography scan, the impact/injury had created functional changes within the brain that could cause long-term complications. Over the past 10 years, health care providers and the public have become more aware of the true impact of this form of injury on adolescents (13-19) in sports and other trauma-related injuries. This is not an injury to ignore; the consequences can be life-threatening.