One Concussion Could be Too Many | New study on the impact of head trauma
How many people do you know with zero concussions? Probably none if they snowboarded often. Almost everyone I know that I grew up snowboarding with has at least one, if not over 7 concussions varying between mild and full-on coma’s.
So while this article from The New York Times shows football players, we know we put up with harder falls than them, so it’s also about us. There’s so much about the brain that we don’t understand and we’re just starting to feel the impact of a life of knocking ourselves out in the name of a good time. Dave Mirra’s shocking suicide (from CTE) added onto the fire and desire for knowledge after Kevin Pearce’s brain injury and subsequent documentary The Crash Reel brought to the public eye.
While snowboard media generally stray away from these types of articles in favor of pretty pictures, Outside Online really got us thinking with their huge expose on how prevalent head injuries and brain trauma is in action sports and how they can lead to CTE, dementia, and even suicide.
Now the Grey Lady is digging into the brain trauma realm by looking at this new study that says even ONE concussion can lead to negative impacts later in life. Also young people are knocking themselves out at an astounding rate. Are we all fucked?
“The results were discomfiting. Young people who had experienced a single diagnosed concussion — which the researchers categorized as a mild traumatic brain injury — were much more likely than the nation’s general population and than their own siblings to be receiving medical disability payments as adults.
They also were significantly more likely to have sought mental health care and much less likely to have graduated from high school or to have attended college than their uninjured brother or sister.
And they were about twice as likely as an uninjured sibling to die prematurely.
The possibility of lingering physical or psychological problems during adulthood rose precipitously, the researchers found, if someone had experienced more than one concussion while young, or if his or her brain injury had been more severe than a concussion.”
Doesn’t look good for us. Even worse if the concussion happened after 15 because brains are still forming before that. Better study up on this whole thing and either put a helmet on or quit and start playing computer games. There’s some good news hidden in there as well as tips on the best ways to monitor post-concussion behavior.
