Rest After A Mild Concussion

Rest After A Mild Concussion.
For teens who go through a pacific concussion, more rest may not be better - and may be worse - in aiding recovery from the brain injury, young research suggests. The researchers compared five days of strict rest to the traditionally recommended period or two of rest, followed by a gradual return to normal activities as symptoms disappear. The Medical College of Wisconsin researchers found no significant metamorphosis in balance or mental functioning between teens who rested five days and those who rested one to two days. What's more, those children assigned to five days of close catch reported more symptoms that lasted longer.

And "Being told to relaxation for five days increased your rating of physical symptoms in the first few days and increased volatile symptoms every day for the next 10 days," said lead researcher Dr Danny Thomas, an underling professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the medical college. Physical symptoms included headache, nausea, vomiting, evaluate problems, dizziness, visual problems, fatigue, perception to light or sound, and numbness and tingling.

Emotional symptoms included irritability, sadness, sensitivity more emotional and nervousness. "We should be cautious about automatically imposing excessive restrictions of activity following concussion. We should follow the course guidelines, which recommend an individualized approach to concussion management". The findings of the unimportant study were published online Jan. 5 in the journal Pediatrics.

Repeated Brain Concussion Can Lead To Disability

Repeated Brain Concussion Can Lead To Disability.
After taking a stark hit to the principal during a football game, an Indiana high school student suffered severe headaches for the next three days. Following a point CT scan that was normal, his doctor told him to time to go back on the field until he felt better. But the boy returned to practice, where he suffered a devastating understanding injury called second impact syndrome. More than six years later, Cody Lehe, now 23, is mostly wheelchair-bound and struggles with diminished screwy capacity.

Yet he's fortunate to be alive: Second effect syndrome is fatal in about 85 percent of cases. "It's a unique syndrome of wisdom injury that appears in high school and younger athletes when they have a mild concussion, and then have a more recent head impact before they're over the symptoms of their first impact. This leads to massive perceptiveness swelling almost immediately," said Dr Michael Turner, a neurosurgeon at Goodman Campbell Brain and Spine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, and co-author of a fresh report on Cody's case, published Jan. 1 in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.

The lawsuit study illustrates why it's so noted to prevent a second impact and give a young brain the chance to rest and recover, another proficient said. "Second impact syndrome is a very rare phenomenon. It's estimated to occur about five times a year in the country," said Kenneth Podell, a neuropsychologist and co-director of the Methodist Concussion Center in Houston.

So "What makes this bookwork unique: They're the premier ones to in point of fact have a CT scan after the first hit. What they were able to show is that the first CT scan was read as normal," said Podell, who also is a side consultant for the Houston Texans, of the NFL. "After the first concussion there was no witness of any significant injury.

Risk Factors For Alzheimer's Disease

Risk Factors For Alzheimer's Disease.
Older adults with respect problems and a days of yore of concussion have more buildup of Alzheimer's disease-associated plaques in the brain than those who also had concussions but don't have celebration problems, according to a new study. "What we think it suggests is, head trauma is associated with Alzheimer's-type dementia - it's a danger factor," said study researcher Michelle Mielke, an colleague professor of epidemiology and neurology at Mayo Clinic Rochester. But it doesn't refer to someone with head trauma is automatically going to develop Alzheimer's. Her over is published online Dec 26, 2013 and in the Jan 7, 2014 print go forth of the journal Neurology.

Previous studies looking at whether head trauma is a risk factor for Alzheimer's have come up with conflicting results. And Mielke stressed that she has found only a connect or association, not a cause-and-effect relationship. In the study, Mielke and her body evaluated 448 residents of Olmsted County, Minn, who had no signs of thought problems.

They also evaluated another 141 residents with memory and thinking problems known as mild cognitive impairment. More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, according to the Alzheimer's Association. Plaques are deposits of a protein explode known as beta-amyloid that can construct up in between the brain's nerve cells. While most consumers develop some with age, those who develop Alzheimer's generally get many more, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

They also wait on to get them in a predictable pattern, starting in brain areas crucial for memory. In the Mayo study, all participants were old 70 or older. The participants reported if they ever had a brain injury that concerned loss of consciousness or memory. Of the 448 without any memory problems, 17 percent had reported a understanding injury. Of the 141 with memory problems, 18 percent did.

Blows To The Head Lead To Vision Loss

Blows To The Head Lead To Vision Loss.
As more enquire focuses on the mar concussions can cause, scientists now report that even mild blows to the talent might affect memory and thinking. In this latest study, special helmets were used on football and ice hockey players during their seasons of play. None of the players were diagnosed with a concussion during the meditate on period, but the remarkable helmets recorded key data whenever the players received milder blows to the head. "The accelerometers in the helmets allowed us to include and quantify the intensity and frequency of impacts," said read author Dr Tom McAllister.

And "We thought it might fruit in some interesting insights". The researchers found that the extent of change in the brain's white matter was greater in those who performed worse than expected on tests of reminiscence and learning. White matter transports messages between sundry parts of the brain. "This suggests that concussion is not the only thing we need to pay prominence to," said McAllister, chairman of the department of psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

So "These athletes didn't have a concussion diagnosis in the year we calculated them and there is a subsample of them who are perhaps more defenceless to impact. We need to learn more about how long these changes last and whether the changes are permanent". The over was published online Dec 11, 2003 in the journal Neurology. Concussions are submissive traumatic brain injuries that occur from a sudden blow to the head or body.

Athletes Often Suffer A Concussion

Athletes Often Suffer A Concussion.
Altitude may trouble an athlete's hazard of concussion, according to a new study believed to be the first to examine this association. High school athletes who perform at higher altitudes suffer fewer concussions than those closer to sea level, researchers found in Dec, 2013. One realizable reason is that being at a higher altitude causes changes that metamorphose the brain fit more tightly in the skull, so it can't move around as much when a player suffers a head blow. The investigators analyzed concussion statistics from athletes playing a pass over of sports at 497 US high-class schools with altitudes ranging from 7 feet to more than 6900 feet above lot level.

The average altitude was 600 feet. They also examined football separately, since it has the highest concussion appraise of US high school sports. At altitudes of 600 feet and above, concussion rates in all elated school sports were 31 percent lower, and were 30 percent modulate for football players, according to the findings recently published in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine.

How To Determine The Severity Of Concussions

How To Determine The Severity Of Concussions.
A renewed eye-tracking mode might help determine the severity of concussions, researchers report. They said the candid approach can be used in emergency departments and, perhaps one day, on the sidelines at sporting events. "Concussion is a acclimate that has been plagued by the lack of an objective diagnostic tool, which in turn has helped pep confusion and fears among those affected and their families," said lead investigator Dr Uzma Samadani. She is an subsidiary professor in the departments of neurosurgery, neuroscience and physiology at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

So "Our unknown eye-tracking methodology may be the missing chequer to help better diagnose concussion severity, enable testing of diagnostics and therapeutics, and helper assess recovery, such as when a patient can safely return to work following a head injury," she explained in an NYU report release. According to researchers, it's believed that up to 90 percent of patients with concussions or curse injuries have eye movement problems.