Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Patients with Concussion Presenting to a Specialty Clinic.
J Neurotrauma
; 38(20): 2918-2922, 2021 10 15.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1361745
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients presenting with concussion at a specialty clinic. This study used a retrospective cohort design to compare participants (n = 3021) with a suspected concussion, including a Pandemic cohort (n = 1139; March 2020-February 2021) and a Pre-Pandemic cohort (n = 1882; March 2019-February 2020). Concussions and patient characteristics including age, sex, days since injury, and injury mechanism were extracted from an electronic health record. There were 39.5% (n = 743) fewer concussions in Pandemic. Pandemic presented to the clinic 25.8 days later (p < 0.001) and were 1.9 years older (p < 0.001) than Pre-Pandemic. Sport-related concussions decreased 59.6% overall for Pandemic. Pandemic was associated with proportional increases of concussions involving recreational activities (odds ratio [OR] = 6.11; p < 0.001), motor vehicle collisions (OR = 1.39; p < 0.001), and falls/assaults (OR = 1.33; p < 0.001). A total of 9.4% (107/1139) of all Pandemic concussion initial clinical visits were performed using telehealth (0% in Pre-Pandemic). Concussion visit volume to a sub-specialty clinic decreased by approximately 40% during the COVID-19 pandemic and patients presented to the clinic nearly 1 month later. The increase in telehealth highlights the potential to expand clinical care outreach during the current and future pandemics or similar restrictive time periods.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Outpatient Clinics, Hospital
/
Brain Concussion
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Diagnostic study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Child
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
/
Young adult
Language:
English
Journal:
J Neurotrauma
Journal subject:
Neurology
/
Traumatology
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Neu.2021.0203
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