You may have read and heard a lot about concussions lately. I recently cowrote a clinical report on sports-related concussions in children and adolescents that will be published today in Pediatrics. There have been some positive changes in the NFL and NCAA to improve safety, but you will be glad to know the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletics Association has been following these improved rules for a few years now.

Concussions are brain injuries and need to be taken seriously. They don’t just happen in professional sports, they happen in every sport, at any age, to boys and girls.

Concussions are treated much differently now than they were 10 years ago. While we have learned a lot about concussion, medical professionals continue to learn how to better recognize, treat and prevent short- and long-term consequences.

A concussion is a brain injury that temporarily alters brain functions. It usually happens after a direct blow to the head, but it also can happen from a blow elsewhere on the body where the force gets transmitted up to the head. Most young people are not knocked out, and many kids have no memory loss. Even a child with a normal MRI or CT scan of the brain can have a concussion, because it’s a functional injury, not damage to the brain’s structure. (more…)

For so many Americans who lost their jobs and their insurance, Medicaid is an important safety net. Now imagine you lost both your job and your insurance benefits and your child gets sick, but you have the Medicaid safety net. So, you call your doctor, only to be told that your doctor’s office can’t see your child because he or she cannot see any more Medicaid patients. You are told this is because the state can’t afford to pay the costs for the services. (more…)

Kids spend a good part of their day playing outside in the summer. But before they go outside, it’s important to protect them from the harmful effects of overexposure to the sun.

Do you know the difference between sunburn and sun poisoning?

The symptoms of sunburn may include redness, swelling of the skin, pain, blisters and peeling skin days after the burn. If your child gets sunburn, give him or her a cool bath or place cool washcloths on the sunburned area. You also can give your child acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Apply a moisturizer, like aloe or hydrocortisone cream to the sunburned skin. If the skin blisters, don’t break them open, because they can get infected. It’s also a good idea to keep your child out of the sun until the burn is healed. (more…)