Sports season is time to be aware of concussions
In kids, concussion recovery slower, harder to diagnose
Published 10:50 pm, Sunday, August 30, 2015
With almost any injury, your recovery will be speedier the younger you are.
The exception is a blow to the head.
"A child or a teen heals faster than I do in every way except when it comes to a concussion," said Dr. Diane Tenenbaum, a pediatrician with St. Peter's Health Partners. "Things related to the brain, kids actually take longer to recover."
So experts say heads up. Sports season is here, and a younger child may be the least able to express a symptom and the most likely to suffer long-term harm.
Concussions are the result of a the brain moving or twisting quickly under the skull. Locally, athletic trainers and medical practitioners said they have seen more diagnosed concussions in recent years. That seems to be because of a combination of more intense athletic play as well as improvements in recognizing and treating the injuries.
"We are looking for them, which means we're finding more of them," said Rick Knizek, the athletic trainer at Shenendehowa High School, where about 80 students were known to suffer concussions last year.
Nonetheless, Knizek said he believes the number of injuries have actually increased in some sports at Shen, including girls' volleyball, where he's witnessed more athletes' heads coming into contact with not only with the ball, but also the floor.
In part, experts also attribute the rise in concussion to a more intense, competitive play than seen a generation ago. Students train hard at younger ages and year-round.
"All this training is also protective of their fitness and safety," said Dr. Ken Shapiro, medical director of brain injury rehabilitation services at Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital in Schenectady. "But that still doesn't fully eliminate the potential for a brain injury or spinal cord injury, or a broken leg."
Of all sports, football may have taken the toughest hit in participation from the improved understanding of the dangers that head injuries pose. But concussion is a risk in any sport in which an athlete might suffer a head injury — hockey, football, lacrosse, soccer and cheerleading among them.
Mounting research and heightened media attention about the effects of concussions have raised schools' and private sports programs' interest in the issue. In addition, a state law went into effect three years ago requiring that student athletes who have suffered a concussion be evaluated and released by a doctor before resuming play.
It was a response to a sports culture that pushed young athletes to "get back in the game" — often while their developing brains remained at risk for serious damage from repeated injuries. The ultimate goal of the evaluations is to minimize harm and avoid secondary impact syndrome — a potentially fatal situation where the brain is concussed a second time, before it has healed from the first impact.
Programs to educate coaches and treat concussions have developed in recent years in response.
Capital District Pop Warner Football has in the last five years limited contact during practice and teaches a technique called "heads up" tackling, said Drew Giungo, training director for the 20-organization federation. Athletes are taught to keep their heads up, and to tackle with their arms and shoulders. "We find that the concussions occur when the kids are putting their heads down and leading with their heads instead of with their body," Giungo said.
Ellis Medicine opened a concussion management program in Clifton Park two years ago. It has formed relationships with the Shen and Ballston Spa school districts for both treating concussions and performing baseline tests of cognition, vision and balance before play starts, so that an athlete's abilities can be properly evaluated after an injury.
Sports medicine specialists at Albany Medical Center run clinics with several school athletic departments as well as youth leagues to educate them on concussions.
Albany Med's Dr. Debra Light said the youngest players are not only at highest risk because of the age of their developing brains, but because they may not be able to recognize symptoms or know when to share them.
A concussion can be obvious when someone is knocked unconscious, Light said. But it's often up to the athletes to report other symptoms, such as lightheadedness, dizziness or just feeling out of sorts after any head impact. It's the youngest athletes, the 8- and 10-year-olds, who are often most likely to fail to identify these signs.
Giungo, however, said that most of the kids are getting the message — maybe to an extreme.
"They have gotten over-sensitized to it," he said of all the concussion talk. He'll hear: "'Oh my God, I think I have a concussion, my head hurts.' And it's really that the helmet's on too tight."
email@example.com • 518-454-5417 • @hughesclaire