High School Football/Head Injuries

In the 1 million  HS football players, about 60,000 concussions are reported yearly. At least as many go unreported (kids notoriously underreport concussions). Many of these lead to post-concussion syndrome, headaches included.  These are tough to treat. A fascinating study out of Purdue, 2010, wired up the helmets of 20+ players for an entire season.  They found that, on average, kids had a significant blow to the head over 600 times per season; lineman fared the worst.  They studied “functional(FMRI)MRI” scans of the palyers before, during, and after the season; the scans revealed that the players’ brains changed throughout the season, for the worse; parts of the brain that should be functioning well(DLPFC, cerebellum) stopped working as well; these are vital areas.  Other parts of the brain took over. These changes were seen even in the kids who had no concussions.  Also, on cognitive testing the kids did not do as well throughout the season, even without obvious concussions. So, their brain is stressed and not working very well, due to “subconcussive” blows, lesser hits than would produce a concussion. These brains of adolescents are sensitive, delicate, and underdeveloped; they do not have all of the protective “myelin..white matter” covering that helps to shield adults from injury. The cumulative effects of all of these head collisions is not good…more later….