Head Injury Advice - Children

Cork Emergency Departments

Common complaints following a head injury are:

• mild headache
• dizziness
• memory problems
• being easily annoyed
• tiredness
• poor sleep
• poor concentration
• difficulty socialising

If these complaints are getting worse or you are concerned about them after two weeks you should see your own doctor.

Head injury observation instructions for parents and guardians

Following a head injury, your child should be kept under observation for the next 24 hours. If any concern arises that he/she is developing a problem, please seek advice from your GP or this Emergency Department or, if necessary, make arrangements to bring him/her back to hospital by ambulance, taxi or car.

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The signs that you should look out for are:

• Increasing drowsiness or confusion or difficulty waking child up
• Feeling sleepy that goes on for longer than 1 hour when they would normally be wide awake
• Persisting headache
• Vomiting
• Weakness of one or more limbs or poor balance
• Difficulty in seeing or breathing
• Clear fluid or bleeding from ear or nose
• Fits
• Any other abnormal behaviour including new deafness

When your child is sleeping, you should observe every few hours to establish:

• Does he/she appear to be breathing normally?
• Is he/she sleeping in a normal posture?
• Does he/she make the expected response when you rouse him/her gently?
• (e.g. pulling up sheets, cuddling teddy-bear)
• If you cannot satisfy yourself that your child is sleeping normally, he/she should be wakened fully to be checked.

Some extra advice for the patient to help you get well:

Following this advice will help your child to recover more quickly, and it may stop some of the symptoms from happening.

• Do encourage plenty of rest and avoid stressful and noisy situations
• Do NOT play contact sport for at least three weeks without talking to your doctor first

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