Concussion May Be More Serious than Realized

A concussion is not a trivial event, and current grading scales and return-to-play guidelines for high school athletes should be changed to make them more strict, according to a study published in the January 2004 issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine.

The current guidelines allow athletes with grade 1 mild concussions to return to play immediately if on-the-field symptoms disappear within 15 minutes. However, the study showed that out of 43 athletes with mild concussions who were all symptom-free within 15 minutes of injury, all but four had either memory decline or other symptoms that persisted for several days beyond the game in which they were injured. Previous studies have shown that generally an athlete can fully and safely recover from a mild concussion as long as the brain has had time to heal before returning to contact sports. However, once an athlete sustains an initial concussion, he or she is more susceptible to injury, more serious brain damage, and worsening of symptoms and a lowered threshold for re-injury.

"Based on currently used guidelines, all of these athletes potentially could have been cleared to return to play during the game or practice in which they were injured, potentially risking more severe injury,” said Mark Lovell, Ph.D., director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion Program (UPMC, PA, USA).




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Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center