mild traumatic brain injury

A multidisciplinary sports medicine team at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHA) has proposed sport-specific return-to-play guidelines after concussion for ten sports known to put young athletes at the highest risk of mild traumatic brain injury, including football.

The prevailing media narrative is that concussions or repetitive subconcussive blows "cause" chronic traumatic encephalopthy (CTE) and that there is a proven link between the two. It thus may come as a surprise that, despite widespread media coverage and speculation regarding the late-life or post-retirement risks of cognitive impairment in athletes who engaged in sports involving repetitive trauma, there has been very little in the way of peer-reviewed  literature to support that conclusion, leading many respected concussion researchers to view it as "scientifically premature."

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who sustain mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) such as concussion are more likely to be moderately disabled after injury than those who sustain mTBI without ADHD, finds a new study, which suggests that children with ADHD be encouraged to avoid contact sports that put them at increased risk of TBI. 

Structural abnormalities in children's brains persist in children and teens for months after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) or concussion, even when symptoms have cleared and results on neurocognitive tests have returned to normal, finds a sobering new study in the Journal of Neuroscience.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has named MomsTEAM's expert sports concussion neuropsychologist Rosemarie Scolaro Moser, Ph.D., to its Pediatric Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Panel of Expertm which will develop clinical guidelines for the diagnosis and management of mTBI.  

Emergency medicine provider use the 15-point Glasgow Coma Scale to determine level of consciousness based on responses to various stimuli.  Patients with suspected concussive injury are categorized  as having mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) if they score a 14-15 on on the GCS, but the scale is not useful in assessing the severity of concussion or how long recovery will take, so that the terms mTBI and concussion should not be used interchangeably, says William P. Meehan, III, MD, MomsTeam concussion medicine expert and author of Kids, Sports, and Concussions.

The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) has awarded $1.1 million in research grants to advance the science of sports medicine - specifically related to concussion.

The conclusion that chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is caused by concussions and repetitive subconcussive brain trauma is scientifically premature, say an increasing number of researchers.