Activity restrictions as part of the discharge management for children with a traumatic head injury

This article describes a proactive management strategy that is currently pa rt of the discharge protocol for children seeking care for a head injury (H I) at a pediatric and adolescent trauma center. The strategy consists of se tting activity restrictions for children hospitalized and those seen in the emergency department after a HI that may or not have been sports related. It was developed based on extensive clinical experiments with families of c hildren with a HI and existing guidelines for returning athletes to sports. Possible merits and pitfalls of the strategy are discussed.