Concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). Mechanism of injury is a direct blow to the head, neck, face, or somewhere to the body causing a biomechanical force to the brain. Symptoms can be grouped into 4 categories: physical, cognitive, emotional, and sleep. Sleep disturbance is common, but most athletes complain of fatigue and sleeping more often. The two most common signs are headache and dizziness.
Signs and symptoms usually go away in about ten days. Taking a detailed history is key to assessing a TBI. Loss of consciousness (LOC) does not always happen with a concussion, LOC only occurs in about ten percent of all concussions. Amnesia may occur due to the TBI, and there are two kinds, which are retrograde (preceding the injury), or anterograde (after the injury). Athletes may be confused about recent events, due to the amnesia. Research shows that there are roughly around 1.
6 to 3.8 million sports related concussions a year in the United States. Returning to play for athletes should begin once he or she is completely asymptomatic for twenty-four hours. Once, asymptomatic he or she will begin a return-to-play protocol, but if symptoms occur they must stop and wait twenty-four until asymptomatic again. As an athletic trainer, or any health care provider protection is important and helmets are crucial part of equipment. Although there is a lack of evidence to prove that helmets actually reduce the risk of concussions, evidence shows that mouth guards actually reduce the risk or severity of concussions.
Many sport officials have changed or added rules in order to protect the athletes and/or reduce the risk of concussions in their fellow sports (Weinberger and Brisken, 2013). Increasing awareness of concussions teammate. . the of coaches wanting athletes to be tough (Mihalk, Linnan, Marshall, McLeod, Mueller, Guskiewicz, 2013). After a life of sports retired athletes could still suffer the consequences of concussions. Due to the fact that research between concussions and neurodengeration has only been accepted by the science community in the last decade.
Age-related cognitive decline seems to be worse in retired athletes with a history of concussions than the ones without a history. Although without accounting several other factors, white matter had diffused more in retired athletes. When a study was conducted by a group of scientist and neurologist in Canada, they found that as aging already plays a role on the cognitive decline of the brain, but concussions work with aging to increase the cognitive decline (Tremblay, Henry, Bedetti, Larson-Dupuis, Gagnon, Evans, De Beaumont, 2014).
