Concussions: Urgent Care or Emergency Room?

Concussions are a serious problem in the United States. In 2010, concussions—either by themselves or combined with other injuries—were responsible for about 2.5 million visits to hospitals and emergency rooms, as well as deaths. The average death toll per year stands at about 50,000 people. Among people aged 15 to 24, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause for concussions; a close second is sports-related accidents, accounting for an estimated 300,000 injuries annually. Because concussions and their effects can sometimes be underestimated, ignored, or go undiagnosed, an estimated half of all incidents go unreported or undetected. If a person suffers or is suspected to suffer a concussion, which would be the best place to get treatment: an urgent care center or an emergency room?

A concussion is a type of head injury which exhibits a temporary loss of brain function and causes multiple physical, emotional, and cognitive symptoms—some of which are subtle and may be dangerously overlooked. The term concussion is also synonymous and interchangeable with the terms minor head trauma, mild head injury, and mild traumatic brain injury. This injury is caused when the brain is subjected to severe impacts or sudden and rapid acceleration, and the cerebrospinal fluid fails to cushion it properly, resulting in excess linear, rotational, or angular brain movement. If a person were to be subjected to these causes—like a car crash, for instance—and they exhibit symptoms of nausea, headache or vomiting, slowed thinking, inability to concentrate, lethargy, and difficulty in remembering new information, among other things, they may need to see the appropriate medical personnel because it is likely that they have a concussion.

All forms of concussions are serious. While urgent care centers may be capable of administering first aid help or the like to a person with a concussion, they will almost certainly be passed onto emergency rooms where there are medical imaging machines like CT scans to help diagnose and pinpoint the concussed area. Also considering the fact that concussions can become complicated rather easily (some of the worse cases can result into comas), the safest choice to get medical attention would be the ER.