Sports-Related Concussions & Subconcussive Injuries

As many as four out of ten of possible concussions sustained by high school athletes are never reported to a coach or medical professional, with less than one in seven  'bell-ringers' being reported, finds an important new study.

The risk of sustaining a concussion in high school football is not effected by the brand, age or recondition status of the helmet, nor by the type of mouth guard worn, says a new study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine finds.

Athletes who didn't get enough sleep the night before undergoing baseline concussion testing didn't perform as well as expected, say researchers presenting their work at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's 2013 Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL.

NOCSAE warns parents, players, coaches, and administrators to consider the limitations in Virginia Tech's STAR ratings for football helmets and not to overemphasize the role helmets play in protecting against concussions at the expense of focusing attention on other steps that have a more immediate and much greater impact on concussion reduction.

Concussed high school football players who experience symptoms of post-traumatic migraine (PTM), such as headache, nausea, and sensitivity to light or noise, are more cognitively impaired and take longer to recover than those reporting headache without migraine-based symptoms or no headache at all, says a new study.

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who sustain mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) such as concussion are more likely to be moderately disabled after injury than those who sustain mTBI without ADHD, finds a new study, which suggests that children with ADHD be encouraged to avoid contact sports that put them at increased risk of TBI. 

Headaches are the most commonly reported symptom of concussion, but could be the result of a disorder called trauma-triggered migraines (TTMs) and not the result of a concussion, says a new case study and literature review.

The Micheli Center for Sports Injury Prevention will be hosting a free screening of the just released documentary, "The Smartest Team," on Wednesday, June 26th at 6:00 p.m. Dr. William P. Meehan, III, Director of The Micheli Center for Sports Injury Prevention, and Brooke deLench, Founder of Moms TEAM, will be on hand after the screening to answer questions parents, coaches and athletes have about the making of the film or about concussions in general.

A new study says that including the King-Devick test, a measure of fast eye movement, along with neurocognitive and balance testing as part of a battery of rapid concussion screening tools could improve assessment of athletes for suspected concussion on the sports sideline.