The blast that lasts

Cites a study of 13 children who arrived at a Texas hospital with gunshot wounds to the head, reported by Ewing-Cobbs and her colleagues in 'Neurosurgery' (Vol.35, No. 2). How the study compared the recovery of children under age five with that of kids between eight and 14 years old; Conclusion that youth provides no advantage when a bullet enters the brain; The consequences of brain injury in young children.

By PT Staff, published on May 01, 1995

It's conventional wisdom that youngsters recover from injury and traumabetter than their parents or older siblings. But youth provides no advantage when a bullet enters the brain.

That's the unhappy conclusion from a study of 13 children who arrived at a Texas hospital with gunshot wounds to the head. Linda Ewing-Cobbs, Ph.D., and her colleagues compared the recovery of children under age five with that of kids between eight and 14 years old.

The traditional view predicts that younger kids will recover more neurological function. But a three-year follow-up, reported in Neurosurgery (Vol. 35, No. 2), revealed that the younger group was faring no better than the older kids. Despite extensive rehab, nearly all the kids in both groups were moderately disabled.

Where age did matter was in the type of disability the children sustained. "The consequences of brain injury might be more widespread in young children," says Ewing-Cobbs, a professor of developmental pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. Intellectual ability and motor function suffered most in the younger kids.

The older children, on the other hand, regained enough intellectual capacity after three years to test within the average to low-average range on IQ tests. But most of them still had attention problems, and all were deficient in basic living skills.