Young Athletes with Concussion Might Need More Recovery Time Due to Reduced Blood Flow to Brain
A new medical study shows that young athletes who suffer a concussion might still have signs of reduced blood flow to the brain even after their other symptoms disappear.
Using an MRI, researchers examined the brains of young athletes, particularly football players. Students’ brains were analyzed within 24 hours after their initial injury. They found that 8 days after the concussion was diagnosed, when symptoms have typically gone away completely, the athletes’ brains still showed reduction in blood flow. This means their brains were not receiving enough oxygen, making them susceptible to further trauma.
The study only investigated the brains of 18 youth athletes, so it was not a large enough sample to be considered representative of the population.
“Does the decreased blood flow indicate a window of cerebral [brain] vulnerability? Nobody has shown that yet,” said Kenneth Podell, co-director of the Methodist Concussion Center in Houston.
The study suggests there could be potential dangers if a concussed athlete returns to normal activities before they have completely healed, but does not draw any conclusions about whether or not reduced blood flow in the brain actually means greater vulnerability or indicates that the brain has not healed yet. About 30% of the participants reported a previous concussion, as well, which could skew results or how the brain handles additional traumas.
However, other evidence from the MRIs suggested that additional brain abnormalities caused by the concussion took more time to heal, not just blood flow. So although a patient may report feeling normal, the brain is still working on healing itself.
“It really pertains more to the discussion about that person’s readiness to return to activity, where they’re certain to sustain additional head impacts,” said Dr. Michael McCrea, a co-author of the study. McCrea added that the typical time students were given to recover before returning to normal activities, including sports, was 15 days. “It really pertains more to the discussion about that person’s readiness to return to activity, where they’re certain to sustain additional head impacts … The end-game here, from a translational perspective, is that decision making around fitness to return to activity is dependent not only on what we observe to be their clinical recovery, but on their readiness from a physiologic standpoint to return to activities that may render them at risk for secondary injuries down the line.”
“We are at a very early stage in understanding how the brain recovers from concussions and injuries in general,” said Salomao Faintuch, MD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “Recovery time may be much slower, and we can’t currently determine that based on clinical symptoms alone. We’re looking forward to getting more data on how long it takes the brain to fully recover.” He added that MRIs could be a useful guide for physicians in the future, but more work needs to be done to figure out how this data can help doctors provide treatment for concussed patients, especially children and teenagers.
