brain-concussions

A Quick Test to Detect Athletes’ Concussions

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Some sports such as foot­ball are par­tic­u­larly vio­lent and many play­ers suf­fer con­cus­sions. Con­cus­sions can cause a vari­ety of phys­i­cal, cog­ni­tive, and emo­tional symp­toms. Although symp­toms usu­ally go away with­in a few weeks with­out treat­ment, they may per­sist, or com­pli­ca­tions (such as demen­tia) may occur. Recent evi­dence shows that even hits to the head that do not lead to a con­cus­sion can impair visu­al mem­o­ry. Detect­ing con­cus­sions is thus becom­ing crit­i­cal in high-con­tact sports.

A new test that can be per­formed at the side­line of sport­ing events seems to accu­rate­ly detect con­cus­sions by look­ing at dif­fer­ent types of eye move­ments that are usu­al­ly abnor­mal after a concussion:

The test, called the King-Devick test, cap­tures impair­ments of eye move­ment, atten­tion, lan­guage and oth­er symp­toms of impaired brain function.

Tests of rapid num­ber nam­ing such as the King-Devick test are objec­tive and [Read more…] about A Quick Test to Detect Ath­letes’ Concussions

Football: Even “minor” hits can cause brain damage

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Today the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy (AAN) “is call­ing for any ath­lete who is sus­pect­ed of hav­ing a con­cus­sion to be removed from play until the ath­lete is eval­u­at­ed by a physi­cian with train­ing in the eval­u­a­tion and man­age­ment of sports concussion.”

At the same time, an arti­cle in Sports Illus­trat­ed reports a new study in which Pur­due researchers put sen­sors (accelerom­e­ters) in the hel­mets of 23 seniors from Jef­fer­son High in Lafayette, Ind. Results are sur­pris­ing and con­cern­ing: Hits that do not even lead to con­cus­sions can have a much big­ger impact on the brain than we thought. [Read more…] about Foot­ball: Even “minor” hits can cause brain damage