Standardized Concussion Tools Work Well in Children and Adolescents

There are very limited data on the ability of the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool version 3 (SCAT3, for patients aged >12 years) and its child version (ChildSCAT3) to differentiate between concussed and nonconcussed children. Enrolling patients from an emergency department in Australia, investigators compared assessment results between 90 children with concussion and two control groups — 90 with an upper extremity injury and 84 well children accompanying injured siblings (mean age of all groups, 11 years). Children aged 5 to 12 completed the ChildSCAT3 and those aged 13 to 16 completed the SCAT3.

For the majority of items on both instruments, children with concussions scored significantly more poorly compared with the two control groups, en…