Symptoms Of A Concussion For Boys And Girls Are Different

Symptoms Of A Concussion For Boys And Girls Are Different.
Among high-class day-school athletes, girls who suffer concussions may have different symptoms than boys, a green study finds. The findings suggest that boys are more likely to report amnesia and confusion/disorientation, whereas girls disposed to report drowsiness and greater sensitivity to noise more often. "The take-home implication is that coaches, parents, athletic trainers, and physicians must be observant for all signs and symptoms of concussion, and should do homage that young male and female athletes may present with different symptoms," said R Dawn Comstock, an initiator of the study and an associate professor of pediatrics at the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus.

The findings are slated to be presented Tuesday at the National Athletic Trainers' Association's (NATA) assistant Youth Sports Safety Summit in Washington, DC. More than 60000 leader injuries crop up among high school athletes every year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although more males than females participate in sports, female athletes are more inclined to to withstand sports-related concussions, the researchers note. For instance, girls who tomfoolery high school soccer suffer almost 40 percent more concussions than their manful counterparts, according to NATA.

The findings suggest that girls who suffer concussions might sometimes go undiagnosed since symptoms such as drowsiness or warmth to noise "may be overlooked on sideline assessments or they may be attributed to other conditions," Comstock said. For the study, Comstock and her co-authors at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, examined statistics from an Internet-based observation system for high school sports-related injuries. The researchers looked at concussions active in interscholastic sports practice or meet in nine sports (boys' football, soccer, basketball, wrestling and baseball and girls' soccer, volleyball, basketball and softball) during the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 shape years at a representative sample of 100 drugged schools. During that time, 812 concussions (610 in boys and 202 in girls) were reported.

In adding to noting the prevalence of each reported symptom among males and females, the researchers compared the unalloyed number of symptoms, the time it took for symptoms to resolve, and how soon the athletes were allowed to earn to play. Based on previous studies, the researchers thought that girls would report more concussion symptoms, would have to delay longer for symptoms to resolve, and would take longer to return to play. However, there was no gender imbalance in those three areas.

During the first year of the study, the surveillance system included only the prime concussion symptom for each athlete. In the second year, high school athletic trainers were able to put all the symptoms reported by the concussed athlete.

In both years, headache was the most commonly reported mark and no difference was noted between the sexes. However, in year one, 13 percent of the males reported confusion/disorientation as their leading symptom versus 6 percent of the girls. Also in the principal year, amnesia was the primary symptom of 9 percent of the males but only 3 percent of the females.

In the next year, amnesia and confusion/disorientation continued to be more common among males than females. In addition, 31 percent of the concussed females complained of drowsiness versus 20 percent of the males, and 14 percent of the females said they were acute to noise, compared with just 5 percent of the males. Concussion researcher Gerard A Gioia, primary of pediatric neuropsychology at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC, called the findings "relatively subtle" and "at best hypothesis-generating, content they are pornographic but in no respect conclusive".

Gioia said one of the study's limitations is that the reporting scheme didn't explain about how the injuries occurred. "The presence of increased amnesia and confusion, two untimely injury characteristics, in the males suggests that the injuries between the males and females may have been different," he said. Future studies will seemly address this theory, said Comstock, now that the surveillance system has been expanded to encompass much more detailed information sildenafilbox.com. Preliminary data suggest, for instance, that football players demonstrate a tendency to get hit on the front of the head, while girls who play soccer or basketball often suffer a blow to the side of the head, she said.