title: The injured child. An approach to care.
abstract: Injury is the leading cause of childhood death and disability in this country and has been for over a decade. Examination of the current injury statistics clearly demonstrates the failure of our present prevention strategies. Unless definitive steps are undertaken to initiate a comprehensive national injury prevention program, this tragic impact upon children will continue. To ensure that optimal care for injured children is provided, several criteria must be met. Seriously injured children require skillful assessment by clinicians experienced in pediatric trauma and rapid evacuation to a regional pediatric trauma center when appropriate. Their care is best provided by a multidisciplinary team including intensivists, surgeons, and rehabilitation specialists, all thoroughly familiar with the types of injuries children sustain. In the ICU, careful monitoring of circulatory, respiratory, renal, and neurologic status combined with early intervention for physiologic derangements maximizes the injured child's chances for recovery. Finally, it is important to understand that care for the injured child spans a continuum beginning with prevention, continuing through acute care, and ending only after rehabilitation and reintegration into the community is complete, and that each component is no less important than another. Only through these efforts can the loss of our nation's most precious resource be avoided.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Trauma Services, Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC.
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Moront
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Eichelberger
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Wilkinson
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003663:Decision Trees; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D010146:Pain; D010372:Pediatrics; D012119:Respiration; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*