post-concussion syndrome

In the small percentage of cases where a student-athlete's concussion symptoms, such as headache, do not resolve quickly (a condition called post-concussion syndrome), treatment by a team of specialists is recommended, as there are no cookie-cutter answers, says sports concussion neuropsychologist, Rosemarie Scolaro Moser, Ph. D.

After sustaining a series of hits to her head during the previous week's training, Heidi Taggart asked her ice hockey coach to be excused from goaltending during a game in February 2010 when she began experiencing "flu-like" symptoms.  He told her to "suck it up" and take the ice. During pre-game warm-ups, a teammate's stick hit Heidi in the head during the follow-through from a wrist shot.  She immediately began experiencing concussion symptoms (headache, disorientation, drowsiness), but the injury was not initially thought to be too serious.   It was anything but. As her mom, Dorothy Bedford, now recalls, the road Heidi travelled from that Friday night on the way to recovery from post-concussion syndrome would be marked by a long series of "unmarked detours" taking fourteen months and requiring treatment from more than 10 different medical specialists.

An athlete's extended recovery from concussion disrupts the family, not only in terms of the financial expense but on day-to-day family life, says a mom whose daughter took 14 months to recover from her concussion.