Concussion 101: Dealing with sports’ biggest rival

Concussions are serious and common traumatic brain injuries that many people experience every day. Junior volleyball player Tristan Carver is no stranger to the serious brain injury; he has suffered three concussions throughout his life and he talks about how impactful they can be.

“I was really dizzy and I came back to school and I went to my first hour class and I just broke down in tears because I was so nauseous and dizzy and I had a headache.” The effects of his concussion put him in bed, in the dark to avoid the pain from stimulants like light and sound.

Carver tells the story of his first concussion, and in his opinion his worst, in the fourth grade while playing football.

“I blacked out,” Carver said, ”hit my head right into the ground and then I just started crying and not even because of pain, just because it was weird.” Pain, nausea, emotional instability and more: all symptoms Carver has endured during a concussion.

Defining a concussion

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), a concussion is defined as “a complex pathophysiological process affecting the brain, induced by biomechanical forces.” Concussions can be related to bruises of the brain due to blunt force trauma to the head or neck.

Prevacus Inc., a research facility that specializes in concussions, describes the most common symptoms of a concussion to be dizziness, nausea, blurred vision, and unconsciousness. Depending on the severity, a concussion can result in more long lasting symptoms such as memory loss, headaches, and inability to focus for long periods of time. Because of this, many student athletes have had to miss large quantities of school in order for them to heal correctly.

Once a person has received a concussion, they are more prone to receiving a second due to their initial one. This factor seems to have the greatest effect on students as many have had to quit playing contact sports because their personal safety was at risk.

Factors affecting susceptibility

Data from The American Journal of Sports Medicine displays that more than half of sports related concussions come from football players. After football, usually girls soccer is a close second with lacrosse and boys soccer following.

This rings true here on campus, with the football team experiencing the highest concussion count of four last season, followed by girls’ soccer with 3 concussions last season.

“Last year, in the whole football program [out of] 290 kids, we only had about 8 or 9 [concussions],” head football coach Preston Jones says.

Sport is not the only contribution to individuals’ susceptibility to concussions. Recent studies seem to have mixed results as to whether or not either gender is more prone to suffering from concussions. Some show that girls are more likely to receive a concussion while some show that they are not. Regardless, female teams experience the largest amount of concussions through contact sports such as soccer and basketball.

There are many theories as to why our female teams have a greater amount of concussions than our male teams, including neck strength, head size, estrogen’s protective effect in males, and even a stronger male tendency to conceal their symptoms to get back into the game.

“[Girls’] heads are smaller and necks aren’t as strong, so when they hit, they tend to be more prone to concussions than the boys,” says weights trainer Joelyn Boone.

“Male athletes are more reluctant to report concussions for fear of being removed from competition,” according to Prevacus, “which may result in the well-documented underestimation of the incidence of concussion among boys.”

According to NCAA, females concussion rates are higher, not only because they are more likely to report it, but because of factors such as neck strength and length.   

Treatment and prevention

Up until recently, concussion knowledge was limited and the sports world was lacking in any forms of prevention or treatment. As the effects of concussions came to light, athletes were demanding safer equipment and better precautionary measures to reduce the amount of concussions. Prevacus states that concussions have doubled in the last decade, but many believe that is because there wasn’t enough technology to diagnose them until recently.

“I just think we all played through it,” Boone says. “We didn’t know any better; now we know better.”

Students at Perry have to go through the ImPACT test, a baseline test, when they want to start playing a sport. This test consists of simple questions, and each athlete must pass it before the season begins. In the event of a potential concussion, trainers will give the test again on the sidelines to check the cognitive abilities of the student. If they pass, they play; if they don’t pass and it is declared a concussion by the trainer.

Once diagnosed with a concussion, players have to ease their way back into playing and can only progress as long as they remain symptom free. The athlete begins with light to moderate exercises and then transitions into non-contact exercise. Finally, if they are still symptom free, the player can being regular practice again.

“You go to the baseline testing with a trainer;” principal Dan Serrano says, “if the trainer thinks you have a concussion, then you have to pass that protocol before you’re allowed to participate.”

Given that there aren’t any foolproof ways of preventing concussions, all coaches can do is train their players to make smart decisions. Jones explains how he coaches players to specifically avoid concussions, “limit the amount of contact, off season and in season work in the weight room, the proper conditioning, the proper strength training.”

“Coaches have to go through a training as well,” Serrano says, “even off-campus volunteer coaches; if you’re going to be out there [coaching,] you go through some training and concussions are part of it.”

Physical education teacher Lerina Johnson explains the best way to prevent concussions is to be informed. “Educating kids, educating parents, educating staff and coaches, I think is huge on prevention and on signs of concussions,” she says.

Spreading general awareness among athletes and coaches is the most proactive way to prevent concussions. As concussions are seen in a new, more scientific light, new treatments and methods of prevention are helping to lessen the damage dealt by this serious form of trauma.