Tagged with “High school sports”
December 10, 2018
Researchers from Berkeley, Duke, UNC Chapel Hill and University of Arizona used a new type of MRI called “diffusion kurtosis imaging” (“DKI”) to take brain scans of 16 high school football players, ages 15 to 17, before and after a single season of football. DKI is an extension of Diffusion Tensor Imaging, (DTI) discussed in prior posts. Early studies suggest that it outperforms DTI in capturing certain microstructural changes in the brain. The football players who were scanned all wore helmets and none of them were diagnosed with a concussion. The researchers also measured head impact exposure during every practice and game using the Head Impact Telemetry (HIT) system, which has been widely used in other head impact studies. The study, which is the cover story of the November issue of the journal Neurobiology of Disease, is one of the first to look at how impact sports affect the brains of children at this age.
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January 17, 2017
In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on December 20, 2016, Canadian researchers found that children and adolescents who returned to exercise within seven days of experiencing a concussion had nearly half the rate of persistent post-concussive symptoms a month later. This finding challenges the current cornerstone of pediatric concussion management, which is physical and cognitive rest until acute symptoms have resolved. Read More
September 29, 2016
There’s new evidence supporting immediate removal of athletes from play following concussion.
A new study published in the September, 2016 issue of Pediatrics provides evidence that returning to play immediately following a sports related concussion, even without a “second impact” nearly doubles, on average, the length of time required to recover and exposes athletes to a greater risk of protracted symptoms. As the authors point out in their report, the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council stated in 2013 that
“the culture of sports negatively influences SRC [sports related concussion] reporting and that athletes, coaches, and parents do not fully acknowledge the risks of playing while injured.”
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February 3, 2015
The New England Journal of Medicine has published the most exhaustive analysis to date of brain injury in children and adolescents. The results reinforce the critical importance of safety helmets for children under 12 and the importance of safety helmets and seatbelts for adolescents.
The data analyzed in the study was from over 40,000 pediatric brain injuries. The most common cause of trauma in children under 12 was falls, often from bicycles. Motor vehicle accidents, sports injuries and assaults were the most frequent mechanisms of injury among adolescents. Read More
April 21, 2014
Most current guidelines recommend “cognitive rest” during the initial stages of recovery from concussion. “Cognitive rest” involves limiting activities that require attention and concentration such as reading, doing homework, text messaging, playing video games, working online, watching movies and television and listening to music. Cognitive rest has been recommended in the past based on somewhat limited evidence suggesting that failing to minimize these activities in the early stages following a concussion could delay recovery. Read More
June 19, 2013
Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have just published a study in the peer-reviewed journal Radiology showing that soccer players who “head” the ball with high frequency show abnormalities in the white matter of their brains and poorer memory scores on cognitive tests. Read More
June 13, 2013
On June 4, 2013, Vermont’s Governor Peter Shumlin signed a bill that imposes greater requirements on schools to protect student athletes from the potentially serious consequences of concussions in sports, especially from multiple concussions.
Under prior law, coaches were required to keep athletes who they had “reason to believe” had sustained a concussion out of play until cleared to return by a qualified health professional. The new law imposes a similar requirement on a coach or health care provider who “knows or should know” that the athlete has sustained a concussion. Read More
May 15, 2013
The human brain is complex. Every brain injury is unique. But nearly every person who suffers a brain injury experiences that frightening feeling of “I am not myself anymore.” In mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) cases, specifically, this feeling may recede over a period of weeks or months. But for others, it does not.
Whether the symptoms are permanent, improve, or get worse, the reasons for these differences are constantly researched—looking for ways to explain, prevent, and/or heal traumatic brain injuries. Several new studies on mild brain injury are examining factors ranging from genetic differences to differences in emotional make-up in order to understand why these differences exist. New research is leading to new approaches in treatment and rehabilitation, as well as prevention.
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May 11, 2013
Evidence of permanent brain damage resulting from concussion in sports is driving nationwide changes in policy. While over 4000 former National Football League players have filed lawsuits against the NFL for failing to take appropriate steps to protect them from permanent brain damage caused by multiple concussions, it’s not just a professional affair. An estimated 300,000 amateur sport-related traumatic brain injuries, predominantly concussions, occur annually in the United States.
Sports are second only to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of traumatic brain injury among people aged 15 to 24 years. At least one player sustains a mild concussion in nearly every American football game! Read More
