Concussions affect high school athletes with more severe symptoms

By Dr. Zack Steele

We all got a scary reminder a couple weeks ago in Hewitt’s season finale that concussions are a major part of the game. The injury to one of Hewitt’s defensive players was severe enough to delay the game for several minutes.

What’s more problematic is that high school football players are more likely to suffer more symptoms after a concussion, and to need more recovery time than their college counterparts, a new study finds.

With mounting evidence suggesting that concussions that happen earlier in life have a cumulative effect on the developing brain, finding ways to better spot and treat these serious head injuries in younger players is more pressing than ever.

Overall, the study found that about 15 percent of players did not return to play for at least 30 days after a concussion, while 3 percent returned to play less than 24 hours after being injured.

The study also found that high school football players had the highest average number of reported symptoms of concussion (5.60), followed by college athletes (5.56) and younger players (4.76).

For high school players, the likelihood of returning to play at least 30 days after concussion was higher (19.5 percent) than younger players (just over 16 percent), or college football players (7 percent), the researchers found.

The researchers suggested biological factors, such as puberty and brain development, may explain the differences in recovery time among the age groups.

Meanwhile, the youngest players were the most likely to return to play less than 24 hours after suffering a concussion (10 percent), followed by college (close to 5 percent) and high school players (just under 1 percent), Kerr added.

The study findings were published online May 2 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

About 3 million young kids, 1 million high school students and 100,000 college athletes play football each year, the researchers said. Sports-related concussions, which can cause emotional, mental and sleep-related symptoms, are gaining more attention among players, coaches and parents.

Proper screening and concussion protocols are very important in an athlete being able to fully recover from a concussion. Fortunately, I believe our high school training staff does a fantastic job of identifying the problem and making sure these players return at the proper. Trussville youth sports also do an amazing job of training coaches on how to identify a concussion, and how to manage players who have suffered from a brain injury.

Believe me, this can happen in any sport at any age. We recently had a teammate on my daughter’s U-10 soccer team that missed several weeks due to a concussion.

The take home here is as we learn more and more about concussion injuries, the better we will be at managing and treating them.