TY - JOUR T1 - HEAD INJURY FOR NEUROLOGISTS JF - Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry JO - J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry SP - i8 LP - i16 DO - 10.1136/jnnp.73.suppl_1.i8 VL - 73 IS - suppl 1 AU - Richard Greenwood Y1 - 2002/09/01 UR - http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/73/suppl_1/i8.abstract N2 - Trauma is the leading cause of death and long term disablement in young persons. Head injury accounts for about 30% of traumatic deaths and a higher proportion of long term disablement. Historically the emphasis of reviews on head injury has concentrated on the acute phase of treatment and has thus adopted a neurosurgical perspective. As a result, much of the content is peripheral to neurological practice, and the consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI) remain the business of somebody, and as a result nobody, else. An underlying assumption is presumably that anyone can diagnose injury to the head, which is usually true, but determining whether, and to what extent, coexisting injury to the brain contributes to a clinical problem may not be so simple. A night in an accident and emergency department, neurological consultations on the intensive therapy unit or general or psychiatric wards, or involvement in a personal injury case will soon make this evident.Neurological contact with patients with TBI is likely to increase with developing interest in neuroprotection and restorative neurology, drug treatments of specific impairments, increasing evidence of effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes after TBI,1 and improved methods of imaging demonstrating evolving and residual brain damage. This paper aims to describe the sequelae of TBI that impact on current and future neurological practice. A detailed discussion of its rehabilitation is omitted. In the UK, about 2% of the population attend casualty each year after a head injury. Of these 80–90% are not admitted. Of those 200–300 per 100 000 admitted, 20–40% stay for more than 48 hours and only 5–10% have injuries sufficient to warrant neurosurgical transfer.2 About 20% of neurosurgical patients achieve a good outcome. Previously the prevalence of long term disablement has been estimated at between 100–439 per 100 000. However a recent … ER -