CONCUSSIONS HIDING IN THE CFL/NFL
THE LITERATURE LOW-DOWN
This segment is meant to give you the skinny; the short and simple; the low-down on a noteworthy scholarly article from a number of different scientific journals to give you the knowledge and power to take your health into your own hands (within reason).
THE LITERATURE
Today we are going to go over “Why Professional Football Players Choose Not to Reveal Their Concussion Symptoms During a Practice or Game” written by Jeffery Scott Delaney, an associate professor and research director at the department of emergency medicine at McGill University Health Centre, along with his colleagues.
It was published in the journal Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine in April 2017. Clinical Journal Sport Medicine has an average impact factor of around 3. The impact factor basically gives you an estimation of how popularly cited the articles in the journal are and by proxy its reputation in the academic community. The most popular journal in the world, The New England Journal of Medicine, has an impact factor of around 70. It is important to note, the impact factor does not tell you anything about the content or validity of each of the articles written in the journal, just its popularity. Just like social media, the more popular journals have more reach and publicity than less popular journals.
This means that this information in this article might not be known by your healthcare provider due to the lack of reach the journal has. With that out of the way, let’s dive into it.
THE LOW-DOWN
We know that in America there are 1.6-3.8 million sports-related concussions and account for 5-9% of all sports injuries. The reason for the range in those numbers and percentages is due to the fact that concussion goes undiagnosed and unreported. This study aimed to figure out what reasons players Canadian Professional Football League “…who believed they had suffered a concussion during a game or practice decided not to seek attention from medical staff at that time, how often these reasons occurred, and how important these reasons were in the decision process.”
STUDY DESIGN
454 professional Canadian Football players participated in a questionnaire on their prior season including the preseason and postseason games and all of the practices over the season as well. This questionnaire included questions on demographic information like player position, number of years playing football, number of concussions, etc. as well as 14 questions regarding the reasons that when they felt they had suffered a concussion that they did not seek or volunteer their symptoms to a physician / Therapist / Trainer.
RESULTS
106 (23.4%) of the athletes felt they had suffered a concussion during their last season in either a game or practice. 87, or around 80%, of those athletes, had or didn’t tell anyone of their concussion at least once during the last season; and there was an average of 2 self-diagnosed concussions for each of the 87 athletes. The remaining 20% of athletes reported volunteering and also hiding concussion information based on the importance of the game or time of the season they were in when the concussion occurred.
Some highlights from the data show that around 45-50% of the athletes reported “[they] did not feel the concussion was serious/severe and felt you could still continue to play with little danger to yourself” and was the most common reason athletes did not report symptoms. Only 7% of all athletes who stated they wanted to finish the game/practice before seeking medical attention actually did. Finally, 26.5% did not report symptoms due to “Fear that being diagnosed and labeled with a concussion could affect your financial income now or in the future”.
TAKE-AWAYS
Concussions are highly underreported. Although this article was about professional Canadian football players, these results are similar to other sports and general populations studies that have been documented. Concussions are also critically important to diagnose and treat. Those who suffer a concussion are 2-5.8 times more likely to suffer an additional concussion. We can translate a few key ideas from the results of this paper;
Players underestimate the importance of concussion
Players fear socioeconomic consequences of concussion
Players don’t want to let their team down by being removed from concussions
We need to inform our player populations of the short and long-term consequences of undiagnosed and untreated concussions. We have begun to see the ultimate fate of those who have suffered multiple concussions over a long career in sports as more and more case studies of chronic traumatic encephalopathy continue to arise. We also know many other short-term consequences that we covered in our “What is a Concussion” blog.
Preseason testing for concussions can give trainers and physicians better objective data to quantify the intensity and severity of concussions on the sideline and in the treatment room. If we can properly support our athletes with preseason information and “prehab” and reduce the time out of play with accurate and specific treatment; then our athletes may start to feel more comfortable coming forth with their injuries.
At Action Potential, we support our athletes with sports and neurological rehab during all stages of athletic competition to reduce the number of injuries an athlete will suffer in a season as well as optimize nutrition and fuel delivery to aid in the repair and recovery. For concussion, we often provide vestibular autonomic and cognitive rehab to our patients as well as nutrients shown to aid in the recovery of the brain like DHA, Creatine, Vitamin D & K2, and much more. Please check out our “Treating a Concussion” blog post for more on that.
Having a plan on how to best monitor and support your brain health should be something you discuss with your healthcare provider. If you or someone you know would benefit from this information like a sports coach or even athlete, please share this blog and spread the knowledge. For access to the article Click Here. If you have any other questions or comments, please leave a comment so a discussion can take place and those answers can help other people.
visit us at Action Potential - Sport & Neuro Performance across our multiple offices across the Austin, Texas area. Call today at (512) 686-6611 to get scheduled for an appointment at our offices located in Lumos Fitness Collective, Defiant CrossFit, & Black Metal CrossFit
BIBLIOGRAPHY
THIS ARTICLE
Delaney, J. S., Caron, J. G., Correa, J. A., & Bloom, G. A. (2018). Why Professional Football Players Chose Not to Reveal Their Concussion Symptoms During a Practice or Game. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 28(1), 1–12. doi:10.1097/jsm.0000000000000495
OTHER SUPPORTING ARTICLES
Harmon, K. G., Drezner, J., Gammons, M., Guskiewicz, K., Halstead, M., Herring, S., … Roberts, W. (2013). American Medical Society for Sports Medicine Position Statement. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 23(1), 1–18. doi:10.1097/jsm.0b013e31827f5f93
Delaney JS, Lamfookon C, Bloom GA, et al. Why university athletes choose not to reveal their concussion symptoms during a practice or game. Clin J Sport Med. 2015;25:113–125
