Symptoms
Although, awareness has been spread in recent years, many concussions still go unrecognized or unreported, both of which could lead to severe implications. “Coaches whose teams have either no reported concussions or much lower concussion rates [5-10% of athletes in contact sports] should be mindful that concussions may be escaping detection as a result of a lack of awareness of symptoms and risks or the tendency of many student-athletes to underreport these injuries” (McGrath, 2010, p.492). Often high school athletes, especially football players, feel if they tell someone about their concussion it is admitting a weakness. The father of Zack Lystedt, a boy who suffered a severe sport concussion at age thirteen, which left him physically and mentally encumbered, feels that strength should be defined differently. “‘There is no one tougher than my son. Sometimes players and parents wrongly believe that it shows strength and courage to play injured. Battling pain is glamorized. Zack couldn’t swallow or hold his head up. Strength is seeing Zack stand up out of his wheelchair and learning to talk again’” (The Lystedt, n.d., ¶5).
There are several symptoms coaches, parents, and even teammates should be watching for in their athletes: disorientation, forgetting short-term memories, trouble staying up (balance), unable to answer questions accurately or quickly, unconsciousness, behavior changes, and an inability to remember events from before or after the impact. The student also may experience a headache, poor vision, queasiness, irregular sleep patterns, fatigue, ringing ears, sensitivity to light/sound, or be overly emotional (“Recognizing concussion,” n.d., p.1 ). These symptoms may be associated with acute metabolic dysfunction, a period of abnormal metabolic function. Acute metabolic dysfunction may also increase an athlete’s risk for future brain injury (McClincy, 2006). Although symptoms may vary and these don’t always indicate head trauma, these conditions should send a red flag |