A child’s IQ and intelligence is not affected in a clinically meaningful way by concussion, a new study has revealed.
While parents understandably worry about the consequences of their child sustaining a head injury, and medical opinions about its impact on IQ have been mixed, research has established this is generally not affected by concussion.
The study compares 566 children aged between eight and 16 with concussion to 300 with orthopaedic injuries, with IQ tests completed three to 18 days post-injury, and then again after three months – and no difference was noted.
Dr Stephen Freedman, a professor of paediatrics and emergency medicine at the Cumming School of Medicine, and co-author of the paper, said: “It’s something doctors can tell children who have sustained a concussion, and their parents, to help reduce their fears and concerns.
“It is certainly reassuring to know that concussions do not lead to alterations in IQ or intelligence.”
“Understandably, there’s been a lot of fear among parents when dealing with their children’s concussions,” said Dr Ashley Ware, a professor at Georgia State University and lead author of the paper.
“These new findings provide really good news, and we need to get the message to parents.”
The children with concussion were compared to children with orthopaedic injuries other than concussion to control for other factors that that might affect IQ, such as demographic background and the experience of trauma and pain.
This allowed the researchers to determine whether the children’s IQs were different than what would be expected minus the concussion.
“We looked at socioeconomic status, patient sex, severity of injuries, concussion history, and whether there was a loss of consciousness at the time of injury,” said Dr Keith Yeates, professor in the University of Calgary’s Department of Psychology and senior author of the paper.
“None of these factors made a difference. Across the board, concussion was not associated with lower IQ.”
The research incorporates two cohort studies from the United States and Canada, one testing patients within days of their concussions and the other after three months.
“That makes our claim even stronger,” says Dr Ware.
“We can demonstrate that even in those first days and weeks after concussion, when children do show symptoms such as a pain and slow processing speed, there’s no hit to their IQs.
“Then it’s the same story three months out, when most children have recovered from their concussion symptoms.
“Thanks to this study we can say that, consistently, we would not expect IQ to be diminished from when children are symptomatic to when they’ve recovered.”
