New publication: Concussion Classification

In 2023, the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) updated its criteria for diagnosing mild traumatic brain injuries (also known as concussions). These new criteria consider factors such as the injury's cause, signs and symptoms, and outcomes from clinical findings. Since this is a new criteria, our research team wanted to understand how well they worked.

To do that, the research team applied the new diagnostic criteria to over 1,400 patients who visited one of the three 360 Concussion Care clinics in Ontario. Most of the patients were young adults, but their ages ranged across the lifespan. Researchers compared the new criteria's diagnosis of brain injuries with doctors' judgments based on their own clinical experience.

They found that doctors were more cautious in diagnosing concussions than the new criteria. In about 18% of cases, doctors were more hesitant to diagnose a definite concussion compared to the criteria. Doctors tended towards underdiagnosis more often when patients didn't have many concussion symptoms at the time of their visit. Notably, patients who were seen sooner after their injury were more likely to show positive results on medical tests and be diagnosed as having a concussion.

So why is this important? The updated criterion may help identify more cases of concussion. Using the new criterion could lead to better care for people with concussions, especially those who might have fewer symptoms at the time of their medical visit.

Read the published paper here