Category: Brain Injury

A new study has found that half of all elite rugby players showed an unexpected change in brain volume because of impacts suffered to the head.

According to a report in Science Daily, the study was funded by the Drake Foundation, which is now calling for changes in rugby protocols in an effort to look out for players’ long-term wellbeing.

The study also said around 23% of the players had abnormalities in brain structure in the white matter and blood vessels, showing the drastic effect that high-impact sports can have in terms of long-term injuries. …Read the rest »

A new study has found that the risk of death after a traumatic brain injury is twice as high among people of color as it is among white people. According to a report on HealthDay, Oregon Health & Science University researchers looked at outcomes among more than 6,300 TBI patients treated at the university’s hospital between 2006 and 2017.

The overall death rate was 9.9%, but it was 14.6% among patients who identified as part of racial or ethnic minority groups. …Read the rest »

A new study has found that women may have an increased chance of suffering from lasting physical and mental symptoms regarding head injuries. According to HealthDay News, a study of 2,000 concussion sufferers found that women were more likely than men to still have symptoms one year later. The problems included fuzzy memory and difficulty concentrating in addition to headaches, dizziness and fatigue. Women and men, however, showed similar recovery times after experiencing traumatic injuries to other parts of the body. …Read the rest »

Peloton has said that a child was fatally injured in an accident involving the company’s Tread Plus treadmill. According to a news report in USA Today, the incident was confirmed in a note from Peloton CEO John Foley, which was posted on the company’s website on March 18. Peloton said in a statement to USA Today that they would not share any additional information out of respect to the family and their privacy. …Read the rest »

The position that a person plays in sports like football or hockey won’t affect the risk of concussion-related brain disease later in life, a new study says. According to a Healthday report, the number of years played also doesn’t affect the risk of the neurodegenerative disease – chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The disease that damages the brain has been linked with repeated blows to the head and progresses over time leading to dementia. The study’s results were published online on Feb. 24 in the journal Neurology. …Read the rest »

A new study shows college football players suffered far more concussions during practice sessions than they did during games. According to a report in The New York Times, the authors of the new study, published in JAMA Neurology, found that 72% of the concussions they reviewed over five college football seasons happened during practice. Although preseason training accounted for about one-fifth of the time researchers studied, they found that nearly half of the concussions occurred during that period. …Read the rest »

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has demonstrated how a specific assessment of the eye could potentially help properly diagnose and monitor concussions. According to a report, the findings were published this month in JAMA Ophthalmology. In what was the first study of its kind, the research term showed that quantitative pupillary light reflex metrics, which determines how the pupil responds to light and are obtained by using a hand-held device, could be used to differentiate adolescent athletes who suffered from a concussion from healthy adolescents. …Read the rest »

A new study from Henry Ford Health System’s Sports Medicine Research found that high school athletes in several sports are more at risk for concussions than previously recognized. According to a news report, the study also found that teens involved in sports need more time to recover from concussions than previously thought. The study’s results were published in Orthopedics, which is a nationally recognized, peer-reviewed journal for orthopedic surgeons. …Read the rest »

A recent study has determined that it may not be a good idea to drive for a while if you have suffered a concussion. According to a Healthday news report, researchers at the University of Georgia concluded that people who have concussions often have slower reaction times as a result and do more poorly in tests involving thinking skills after their injury compared to peers who don’t have concussions. …Read the rest »

A new study is showing that high school athletes are still sustaining brain injuries in increasing numbers, and young athletes who suffer concussions need at least a month to recover. These findings that were published in the journal Orthopedics observed 357 high school adolescents (62% males) who were on average 15 years old and were involved in sports from September 2013 to December 2016. The researchers looked at data related to athletes to sustained concussions during this period and compared these to historical data on concussions among young athletes. …Read the rest »