Summary: Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Head injuries, including concussions, particularly in the game of American football, have become a subject of deep concern, much study and even Congressional hearings in the United States.

As a result, early identification is extremely beneficial to accurately examine damages to the brain because it leads to degenerative diseases. These diseases are hard to catch if symptoms are not shown in the athlete right away. The NFL has to adopt better protocol to diagnose concussions based on medical data instead of assessing by judgment (Futterman). A more scientific approach is being studied that can diagnose concussions faster and more accurately. By using a simple blood test after six hours of forceful impact, the test can display brain cells that have broken down succeeding the impact. By exercising such a test, it can rid the uncertainty of when it is safe to get an athlete back on the field without triggering further cognitive damages.

This was a very interesting article because I never thought that it would be plausible to “diagnosis” concussions other than using a CT scan. Of course, athletic trainers can sort of gage of an athlete might have a concussion by the concussion protocol, but the reading that it gives is not one- hundred percent like the CT scan is. Even with this new technique that this article brings to the table, it is not one- hundred percent because in the article it even states that “Pinpointing these proteins can help identify some concession cases...” the key word in this sentence in some cases. The proteins that his except is speaking about is the UCH-L1 and GFAP and it is important because they increase twelve hours after the injury takes place. It does seem as if this process might be cheaper or have the potential to be cheaper than a CT scan, but it is not as accurate and I truly doubt that people will implement this practice anytime soon.

Concussions or mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI) are the most common forms of traumatic brain injury. There are between 1.6 and 3.8 million concussions a year that occur due to sports and recreation accidents alone (CDC). Mild concussions and MTBIs were once thought to be insignificant in terms of consequences. However, there now is significant evidence that neurological even with what is thought to be a mild injury, physiological, and cognitive changes can occur. Individuals sustaining mild brain injuries often report an assortment of physical, cognitive, and emotional/behavioral symptoms referred to as post concussion syndrome (PCS). There are many symptoms associated with PCS, but these symptoms are often mistaken as behavior, mood, and/or adjustment disorders.

Many scientists, doctors, and institutions have been experimenting on head injuries such as concussions. The Stanford researchers have equipped football players, martial arts fighters, and local boxers with sensor-laden mouth guards**. Apparently, they have been designed to measure “rotational accelerations on the head, roll, pitch, and yawn”. This is a big advancement because now it may be a lot easier to analyze this brain injury due to the fact that the data will be more detailed. It is known that a concussion can affect the Corpus callosum. This structure manages one's ability to perceive objects. Just like alcohol impairs a person's visual judgement, concussions can do the same. Studies have proven that although a majority of concussions

The hot topic of concussions in football has attracted a considerable amount of unwanted attention in recent years. This problem is continuing to grow at a rapid rate, while our society is oblivious that a problem even exists. Many of us in today’s day in age know someone who has played football at the high school, collegiate, or professional level. The incidence of players who end up with concussions is astounding. It is interesting that someone who has suffered from a concussion can seem virtually symptom free for many years before it causes a number problems. It is estimated that damage to the brain caused by a concussion can last for decades which opens the door for more potentially life

Especially because “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that in the US only 50,000-300,000 contact sports athletes sustain a concussion during the course of a single year” (De Beaumont et. al. 631). The study examined at total of 51 active university football players. They were divided into three investigational groups a multi-concussed group, a single-concussed group, and a non-concussed group. Each group was given a standardized concussion history form to determine comprehensive information about their previous concussions (De Beaumont et. al. 634). De Beaumont and the other authors mention that the multi-concussed group experiences a vast amount of concussions that involved either anterograde amnesia or retrograde amnesia compared to the single concussed group (634). The players in this study also participated in a questionnaire that asked them to “rate themselves on a scaled from 0 (no symptom) to 6 (severe symptom) on a series of 19 post-concussion symptoms for a total possible score of 114” (De Beaumont et. al. 636). After this questionnaire was completed De Beaumont and the others noted that not one of the players have

The embarrassing reality in today’s sporting world is that we know very little about the causes and effects of head injuries. Granted we have made leaps and bounds over the past decade or so, we are still just scratching the surface when it comes to understanding concussions. One of the biggest challenges facing the study of concussions is finding a standardized way of evaluating them. During my research I was astonished to learn how many different ways concussions are interpreted. The biggest problem when evaluating concussions is the inconsistencies of the injury. In some cases one single concussion can be life threatening while in other cases athletes can suffer several serious concussions and suffer only minimal effects. Figuring out why concussions differ so much will be one of the keys to understanding concussions.

Concussion diagnosis is assessed through a variety of subjective clinical assessment tools (ex: SCAT3, SAC, BESS, Symptom checklists).17 These clinical assessment tools are often subjective in nature and largely rely on the patients’ test performance. Researchers are currently seeking out appropriate advanced concussion assessment approaches that are more objective. The following essay will outline Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS), Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and Electroencephalography (EEG) as advanced imaging tools that researchers have used to outline the effects of concussion on the brain.

The American Academy of Pediatrics estimated in a recent review that up to 3.8 million recreation and sports related concussions occur annually in the United States, although only 300,000 are reported each year (“Concussion,”2012). The brain of a young athlete is still developing, which makes them more vulnerable to the effects of a concussion compared to an adult (Halstead & Walter, 2010). The young athlete often neglects to report symptoms of concussion because they do not want to sit out of their sport. This places them at a higher risk for a longer recovery along with more serious consequences if they sustain a second concussion (Ahmann, 2013).

Many private companies and researchers have taken the issue of concussions head on. Research has drastically increased throughout the 21st century. In the words of Mark Lovell PhD. founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion Program, “90% of what we know about concussions we’ve learned in the past five years.” These private researchers have taken different approaches to solving the issue but they are all working to achieve one goal: the reduction of concussions and the prevention of their long-term effects.

The term “concussion” across various areas of clinical and research contexts changes and is not well defined causing confusion in patients and healthcare providers. The term “concussion” is interchangeably used with the term mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), minor lose head injury, and mild closed head injury (Apps & Walter, 2012). Concussion is used in the sports medicine community to place an emphasis on impaired functional status following head trauma, and this concept will be further reviewed in this study.

The authors of the article called “Comparison of the Balance Accelerometer Measure and Balance Error Scoring System in Adolescent concussions in Sports” are known as Furman, G. R., Lin, C. C., Bellanca, J. L., Marchetti, G. F., Collins, M. W., & Whitney, S. L. According to this article there is an average of 1.4 million cases of brain injuries reported in the United States a year. Sport related concussion play a huge part in this concussion. According the international conference on concussions the most common aspects of a concussion to be tested are dizziness, headache, poor sleep and emotional problems. The most popular symptom to test for a concussion is for dizziness. This is because it helps determine if there is any balance problems. If there is any balance problems it can indicate that might be affecting the central nervous system or the inner ear mechanism.

Sports concussions are a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that can have long-term neurologic sequelae. Sports concussions have an estimated incidence of 3.8 million per year in the U.S. which represents a significant public health issue[2]. Approximately 50% of sports concussions may be unreported. As such, the public health implications of sports concussions are significantly underestimated. Sports concussions may occur from any sport and are more common in high impact contact sports such as ice hockey, American football, boxing and soccer[3].

The Sports Concussion Assessment Tool, 2nd Edition (SCAT2) was developed to track the concussed athlete’s performance post-concussion and has since been revised to the SCAT3 tool. The SCAT3 tool includes a symptom checklist, a neck examination, a coordination examination, and a balance and cognitive assessment.20 It incorporates the Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC) which includes the cognitive component and the Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) which includes the balance component. The components of the SCAT3 have shown to have psychometric properties for reliability (0.54-0.94), specificity (0.76-1.0), and sensitivity (0.34-0.94).20 This sideline tool is designed for use in children over the age of 13. The Child-SCAT3 tool was designed for children between 5-12 years of age, although it has not been validated at this