Preventing winter head injuries

Heading out? What goes on a kid's head is more important than what goes on his feet

Wendy Haaf,

Originally published in Today's Parent February 2010

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Winter sports are a fun way for kids to stay active and healthy during the chilly months. But those benefits — and your child — are at risk if he isn’t wearing a proper helmet. In Ontario alone, approximately 510 people per year — most between ages five and 14 — end up in emergency departments for tobogganing-related head trauma. And at least half of these injuries could probably have been prevented with proper helmet use: A recent study of downhill skiers and snowboarders, for instance, found that wearing a helmet reduced the risk of head injury by 60 percent.

The scary thing is that it’s not just those heart-stopping wipeouts that cause potentially lethal head injuries; sometimes, a seemingly minor spill on the ski hill can trigger life-threatening bleeding inside the skull — a lesson underscored by actress Natasha Richardson’s death last winter.

The good news? Helmets offer protection. “Helmets are designed to prevent skull fractures and intracerebral bleeds,” notes Laura Purcell, a paediatric emergency consultant at London Health Sciences Centre in London, Ont.

What helmets can’t do, says Purcell, is keep the brain from sloshing hard against the inside of the skull, which is what causes concussions. “Invisible” brain injuries that don’t show up on X-rays or CT scans, concussions can interfere with thinking, concentration and memory. They can come from a hit to the head (regardless of whether the person is wearing a helmet) or from the energy from a blow travelling through the body to the head (during a bodycheck, for example, or a hard fall on the backside).

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