Repeated Brain Concussion Can Lead To Disability

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

Yet he's fortunate to be alive: Second repercussions syndrome is fatal in about 85 percent of cases. "It's a unique syndrome of thought injury that appears in high school and younger athletes when they have a mild concussion, and then have a minute head impact before they're over the symptoms of their first impact. This leads to massive cognition 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 recent report on Cody's case, published Jan extreme. 1 in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.

The patient study illustrates why it's so powerful to prevent a second impact and give a young brain the chance to rest and recover, another skilful 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 turn over unique: They're the basic ones to in 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 span consultant for the Houston Texans, of the NFL. "After the first concussion there was no documentation of any significant injury.

And then following the second one is when they ran into all of the problems". During the Friday night game, Cody told a teammate the first off hit was the hardest he had ever taken and his head hurt and he felt dazed. But he downplayed symptoms to his parents, coaches and trainer. "I reflect he was telling them what he was telling us," his mother, Becky, said. "In those days, to have a concussion, if you weren't vomiting or lacking to go to nod off or have blurred vision or all that kind of stuff, then you didn't have a concussion. He didn't have any of those symptoms; other than the headache, all else was OK.

And he told them, 'I just need to go home and lie down and I'll be all right". The on-again-off-again headaches, however, were bad enough that he finally asked to see a doctor. "The tamper with did say, 'Your scan is fine, but anytime you have a headache like that you probably shouldn't play,'" Becky recalled. "It was the start week of sectionals, and we won the first round. Cody was the captain, so he said, 'I'm not prospering to stay on the sidelines. I've had headaches feel attracted to this before. And if the scan says I'm fine, I'm playing.'"

The follow-up damage occurred during Tuesday afternoon practice. "The second hit, which was very, very minor; we're even indisposed to call it a 'hit' because it was a really light practice, and they weren't even in full pads. It was just stripe of shoulder brushing and he was down". Turner said, "After his second impact, he says, 'I in reality feel bad,' and went to the side and said, 'I can't feel my legs,' and collapsed. That reproduce is incredibly common in most of the case reports of this".

During Cody's hospitalization, he had complications including kidney failure, sepsis and pneumonia. It was 98 days before he came home. Today Cody has a great feeling of humor but struggles in other ways. "His celebration is terrible. His long-term is still there - if he met you once, he remembers you - but the short-term is unusually bad and it's quite hard to build on things when you can't remember what you did 10 to 15 minutes ago".

Cody has worked his scheme up to six minutes on a treadmill, and can stand up and walk, but he needs someone by his side because his remainder is poor. From this case other parents "can take away that this concussion stuff is serious - it's not malingering. This is why we have influence testing and - all that stuff about keeping athletes out - because of the nightmare of this vitoviga.eu. In July 2012, an Indiana law went into effect mandating that serious school student athletes suspected of having a concussion or head injury be removed from attention and not return until they have been evaluated by a health care provider and given written clearance.