Got a college or high school athlete? Concussions in college and youth sports carry a potentially heavy price, and ever-more worrisome news keeps emerging about the possible long-term impact of concussions. It's not just an issue of headache and wooziness. Concussions in college sports carry potentially devastating risks.
According to the latest medical research, links are emerging between repeated sports concussions and traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer's, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Lou Gehrig's disease - or a motor-neuron degenerative disease that mimics those symptoms. And it's not just pro players at risk. According to Dr. Ann McKee, a professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy and leading expert in brain damage among football players, college and younger players are at risk too.
- When to worry: We tend to not worry as much when concussion symptoms are mild - when our kid doesn't pass out. But according to Mark R. Lovell, Ph.D., director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion program, a high school or college sports player can sustain a severe concussion and traumatic brain injury without passing out. Going back into the game too soon carries significantly more risk. And it happens more often than most parents realize: some 34% of college football players have had a play-related concussion; 20% have had more. The Centers for Disease Control recommend a full medical work-up before an athlete returns to play, whether or not he or she passed out. Parents also need to be aware that laws are changing to help protect young athletes. In Massachusetts, for example, a law governing concussion response in school sports was passed in 2010.
- Alzheimer's risks: The risks go far beyond 10 days of temporary cognitive fuzziness. A 2009 study by the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, at the request of the National Football League (NFL), found that former pro football players, ages 30-49, developed early onset Alzheimer's disease or dementia at far greater rates - 19 times - than the average, non-football player. Read the New York Times' excellent analysis of the study here. The connection between concussions and Alzheimer's and dementia is also confirmed in a 2010 Boston University Medical School study by McKee.
- Lou Gehrig-like disease: A new study by researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine and Massachusetts' Veterans Affairs Medical Center, previewed by the New York Times in August 2010, discovered that several cases of what appeared to be amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, were actually fatal motor-neuron degeneration caused by concussion-like brain injuries. That, they said, might explain why combat soldiers, Italian soccer players, and American pro football players have such high rates of what appears to be ALS - eight times the average. The symptoms are the same, but the only way to actually know is via autopsy - actually looking at the spinal cord and brain - and autopsies are rare once that ALS diagnosis has been made. An abstract of the actual report can be found in the Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology.
