Benched - What You Should Know About Sports-Related Concussions

The autopsy results revealed that he had a severe case of CTE — the worst case ever reported on such a young man Hernandez was only 27 years old. Hernandez was diagnosed with Stage 3 CTE, which causes memory loss, damaged thinking, as well as changes in behavior and impaired judgment. The results are not typical of all former football players, since all the bodies studied were donated by family members who wanted to know if their loved ones had CTE when they died. However, it does show that there are many former football players that have developed CTE.

There is only one confirmed case where CTE was accurately diagnosed in a living person. His condition worsened and he was confined to a nursing home. After his death at the age of 63, the researchers studied his brain. They were shocked to find that the abnormalities of earlier brain scans closely matched what they saw in the brain tissue. Here is the link to the study. The NFL has been criticized for hiding the short- and long-term risks of concussions and repeated head injuries from players and the public.

Studies now reveal that large numbers of football players have suffered from the relaxed enforcement of safety rules. For example, researchers at Virginia Tech found that football risks start at an early age.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

These impacts were more likely to occur in competitive games rather than during practices. Quarterbacks, running backs, and linebackers were all at greater risk. Another study found that dangers are much greater when players start before the age of 12, because they are twice as likely to develop mood and behavior problems later in life. To make play safer for NFL player, the league has changed several rules.

Football and Brain Injuries: What You Need to Know | National Center for Health Research

They have moved kickoffs from the 30 yard line to the 35 yard line and touchbacks from the 20 yard line to the 25 yard line. A touchback is when the offensive or receiving team takes a knee in the end zone after a kickoff instead of running to gain yards. The teams are running towards each other on this type of play, so this rule shortens the distance between the kicking team and the receiving team. Since players gain a lot of speed as they run at each other from across the field, the shorter distances are less dangerous.

The NFL plans to also reduce injuries by continuing to disqualify players who exhibit poor sportsmanship and dangerous conduct.

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Another new rule is the crown-of-the-helmet rule CHR , which penalizes defensive players or offensive ball carriers who initiate contact with the top of their helmet. There is now a yard penalty for this type of hit. The downside of this rule is that players are more likely to tackle the lower body, which increases risk of serious lower body injuries.

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As of December , the NFL made several changes to its concussion protocol. If he was diagnosed with a concussion, he would continue to be benched for the rest of the game and for as long as it took for a doctor to clear him for play. After incidents in December, the NFL changed the rules in an attempt to better protect the players. These new rules include having an unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant UNC for all games, evaluating any player who seems to lack motor stability or balance, and re-evaluating any player who had been evaluated for a concussion during a game within 24 hours of the initial evaluation.

Having the decision made by an expert who is not working for either team is a good way to try to better protect player safety. The high school where I am the athletic trainer has adopted the rugby style tackling technique, which is supposed to decrease impact on the head. Making sure coaches are well educated in the proper techniques will help decrease the risk of an athlete sustaining a concussion. This should be applied to all sports; coaches should be educated in the techniques they are teaching their athletes.

It will benefit the athlete in the long run and prevent not just head injuries, but injuries overall. This is what makes them a unique injury—because no two are exactly alike. You will know if you have a concussion based upon the symptoms that occur. The most common symptoms are a headache, dizziness, nausea, light and noise sensitivity, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, balance problems, and feeling mentally foggy. Symptoms may not always occur directly after contact and can take minutes to hours to occur.

Symptoms can vary depending on the area of the brain that has sustained damage. That is what makes each concussion different from the next. Any athlete who is displaying concussion-like symptoms should be immediately removed from play. This will typically be done by the athletic trainer or team doctor on site. After athletes are removed from play, they are evaluated by a medical professional and diagnosed. I will send any athlete with concussion symptoms to a third-party doctor—typically you want a concussion specialist. This takes out biased opinions and allows the athlete to receive optimum care.

If you are experiencing any concussion-like symptoms after an incident, you should immediately report the symptoms to an athletic trainer. If no athletic trainer is present, you should report the symptoms to the coach and parents. Once athletes have reported symptoms, they should be evaluated by a health care professional to be diagnosed.

Typically, I will provide parents with referrals to doctors who specialize in concussions and who have had success treating other athletes. Another option is for athletes to see their primary care physician or pediatrician. It is vital that athletes report their symptoms immediately to prevent a secondary hit, which could result in a worsening injury. There is a gradual return-to-play process that all my athletes go through. This process begins after the athlete has been symptoms-free, re-evaluated by a health care professional, and cleared to return to play.

With my high school athletes, they are required to go through a return-to-learn process before they are allowed to begin the return-to-play protocol. This involves athletes being able return to their normal academic load without symptoms present. Once they are able to go through a normal school day, they are allowed to begin the return-to-play process. This involves athletes slowly acclimating back into their sport. Just because they have no symptoms present without activity does not mean they are completely symptom-free. An athlete may begin to experience symptoms with activity, which can indicate the athlete is not ready to return to play.

This is why they go through a gradual process. They are to complete each day symptom-free in order to continue onto the next day of progression. Little existing data describe which medical professionals and which medical studies are used to assess sport-related concussions in high school athletes.

To describe the medical providers and medical studies used when assessing sport-related concussions. To determine the effects of medical provider type on timing of return to play, frequency of imaging, and frequency of neuropsychological testing.

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Fisher exact test was used for nonparametric data. Logistic regression analyses were used when adjusting for potential confounders. Few concussions were managed by specialists. The assessment of Computerized neuropsychological testing was used for After adjusting for potential confounders, no associations between timing of return to play and the type of provider physician vs AT deciding to return the athlete to play were found.

The timing of return to play after a sport-related concussion is similar regardless of whether the decision to return the athlete to play is made by a physician or an AT.

Youth and Concussions: Insight on Prevention and Protocol from Athletic Trainer Amanda Khor

When a medical doctor is involved, most concussions are assessed by primary care physicians as opposed to subspecialists. Computed tomography is obtained during the assessment of 1 of every 5 concussions occurring in high school athletes. There has been a recent flurry of interest in the incidence, assessment, and management of sport-related concussions. This is a likely result of several key medical and scientific findings.

First, cognitive function is temporarily diminished after sport-related concussions and can remain diminished even after athletes report resolution of their symptoms. As a result of this recent interest, several major international conferences on concussion in sports have been held, generating consensus statements and updated guidelines to assist clinicians in the assessment and management of sport-related concussions.

There have been very little data published describing how and by whom sport-related concussions are diagnosed and managed. Given their presence at professional and collegiate athletic events, team physicians, certified athletic trainers ATs , or perhaps emergency medical technicians EMTs might be expected to assess and manage most of these injuries, at least acutely. It is likely that physicians and EMTs are even less frequently present at non-football sporting events.

Thus, it is possible that primary care physicians are frequently diagnosing and managing concussions sustained by adolescent athletes. However, the extent of physician involvement in caring for athletes after a sport-related concussion is largely unknown. Results of a survey of ATs published in suggested that team physicians were most commonly responsible for making return-to-play decisions, followed by ATs.

Additionally, we are aware of no published data describing how frequently medical providers are on site when a sport-related concussion occurs in the high school setting, which medical providers are assessing these sport-related concussions, which methods are being utilized to assess sport-related concussions, and which medical providers make the decision to return athletes to play. Similarly, there are scant data describing how frequently neuropsychological testing is used when assessing sport-related concussions when making return-to-play decisions.

Using a large national sample of US high school athletes, we conducted a prospective cohort study to describe the type of medical personnel and the type of medical assessments being used to manage sport-related concussions, including imaging and computerized neuropsychological testing. During the to academic year, US high schools reported data for athletes participating in 20 sports boys: Athletic trainers from participating high schools received a small financial incentive to log onto the HS RIO Web site weekly throughout the academic year to report injury incidence and athletic exposure AE data.

For each injury, ATs completed a detailed injury report form providing information on the injured athlete eg, age, position played , the injury itself eg, body site injured, diagnosis , and the injury event eg, mechanism, activity at the time of injury.

Injuries are defined as those resulting from participation in an organized high school athletic practice or competition and requiring medical attention from an AT. This article focuses on concussions. All concussions that 1 occurred during an organized high school athletic practice or competition, 2 resulted in the athlete receiving care from a medical provider, and 3 were brought to the attention of the AT were recorded. An AE was defined as one athlete participating in one organized high school athletic practice or competition, regardless of the amount of time played.

Fisher exact test was used for comparisons among specialties, registered nurses, and physician assistants, given the relatively low numbers of their involvement. Logistic regression analyses were used to assess for associations between the dependent variable, the timing of return to play, and 2 independent variables: The timing of return to play was collected as a categorical variable: Over the course of the to academic year, HS RIO recorded sport-related injuries, of which Concussion accounted for Male athletes sustained Of recurrent concussions, Data regarding the timing of prior concussions were unavailable for 1.

Most of the concussions recorded were sustained by football players Concussions were fairly evenly distributed among the grades, with The most commonly reported symptoms of concussion were headache Loss of consciousness was rare, associated with only 4. Amnesia was recorded with Nearly one fourth of concussed athletes Of all athletes concussed, most Female athletes appeared more likely to have symptoms lasting more than 7 days from the time of injury A medical professional was on site at the time of injury for Athletic trainers were on site for at least Physicians were on site at the time of 7.

A medical professional was more likely to be on site if a concussion occurred during football as opposed to other sports Medical professionals were more often on site at the time of concussions that occurred during competition or performance as opposed to during practice or training sessions There were no significant associations between having a medical professional on site at the time of injury and duration of symptoms or timing of return to play. Of all recorded concussions,