[ printer-friendly version a study published in the March issue
of the journal Pediatrics, Childrens researchers report that
infants who come into the Emergency Department with a serious
head injury and no mention of trauma to explain the injury are
highly likely to be victims of In every single case where there
was no history of trauma and the child ended up with
neurological damage, it was later determined that the injury was
caused by abuse, says Hettler, MD, assistant in Emergency
Medicine and one of the lead authors of the study. The study was
based on a retrospective review of 200 patient charts of
children from birth to age 3 who were admitted to Childrens with
serious bleeding in the head from 19932000. Researchers looked
at medical information such as a patients neurological status,
results of radiological studies, and ophthalmologic exam
findings to classify patients as either Definite Abuse or Not
Definite Abuse. They then went back and looked at initial
presenting histories to assess whether those