Sep 16, 2024Study: a mild concussion will not lead to long-term cognitive decline
According to a recent study, a single, mild concussion while playing athletics does not lead to long-term cognitive decline.
The conclusion from this study, entitled ‘Sports-related Concussion Not Associated with Long-Term Cognitive or Behavioral Deficits,’ is contrary to what many other studies have concluded regarding head injuries and concussions in sport.
However, a closer look at the study’s findings shows the study’s author is not that far off from his peers.
A recent story from Nation.CYMRU detailed the study’s findings. Below is an excerpt from the Nation.CYMRU story.
The study is a part of a large-scale community-based longitudinal study looking at how healthy brains age, and what factors may increase the risk of dementia. Given the recent high-profile court cases brought by sportspeople with brain injuries and emerging evidence that concussion decreases cognitive function in later life, looking at past incidents of concussion in such a long-term study makes sense.
The study asked over 15,000 people between the ages of 50-90 to remember their past incidents of head injury, including where or how they happened (for example, playing sport, or in a car accident) – along with the symptoms experienced, such as loss of consciousness, dizzy spells and blurred vision. They also tested participants’ behavior and cognitive abilities annually over four years.
The results showed that one mild concussion during sport did not cause any behavioral or cognitive problems later in life. In fact, those who’d suffered one mild concussion during sport performed a little better on some tests, possibly due to the overall benefits of regularly playing sport.
However, as the number of historic concussions increased, this effect disappeared, and performance did decline. Concussions outside of sport showed the same basic pattern – one concussion does not lead to poorer performance, but repeated concussions do.
Basically, no matter how you receive a concussion, the more you get, the greater your risk for a poorer long-term outcome. This is why professional sports people, particularly in contact sports, are at a higher risk of brain injury.
The fact that having one concussion didn’t cause cognitive deficits doesn’t necessarily mean there is no injury. There is the concept of cognitive reserve, the idea that the brain is resilient enough to take some damage, and still function normally.
It’s the same thing with any mild injury to the brain. A little bit and your brain may cope. But over time, if you add more injuries, performance declines, and you reach a point where your brain may be “flat”.
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That’s why it’s essential to “recognize and remove” players from a game after a sports-related concussion.
Just having one concussion does not automatically mean you develop problems in later life. However, the more concussions or mild traumatic brain injuries you have, the worse the results are likely to be – whether you are a professional athlete or not.
To read the full story from Nation.CYMRU about the concussion study, click here.
