High School Concussions Research Paper

There is an estimated 1.6 to 3.8 million concussions that occur annually in the United States resulting in $76.5 billion in healthcare cost. In the high school setting concussions have been shown to have an injury rate of .23 to .25 per 1,000 athlete exposures. An almost two fold increase in concussion rate of .43 per 1,000 athlete exposures has been shown in the collegiate setting. In addition to an increased total number of concussions reported annually, there has also been an increase in the number that were seen and treated in the emergency department, perhaps as a result of the increased attention being given to this injury. From 2001 to 2009 the number of patients increased from 153,365 to 248,418, up 62%. More concussions tend to occur

in collision and high intensity sports such as football and soccer. The overall number of concussions seen in the high school setting account for 8.9% of all injuries while the number is slightly lower in the collegiate setting at 5.8%. However, all of these statistics could be vastly underestimated due to concussions that go unreported and undiagnosed.
Many different institutions and organizations have established their own definition of a concussion and each can be interpreted differently. For the purpose of this review of literature, the definition from the 4th International Conference on Concussion in Sport held in Zurich will be used. This group defines a concussion as “a complex pathophysiological process affecting the brain, induced by biomechanical forces”. This could be caused by a direct blow to the head, face, neck, or elsewhere to the body and result in a rapid onset of temporary neurological impairment, usually resulting in no structural brain damage or loss of consciousness.
The pathophysiological process associated with a concussion has been research extensively the past few years. There is no known biomarker to help diagnosis a concussion but a series of events have been identified that occurs within the brain. Once an impact occurs causing a concussion there is neural shearing in the brain tissue that leads to an imbalance of ions resulting in metabolic changes. These imbalances and changes cause neural dysfunction leading to impaired connectivity between the neurons and changes to neurotransmitters. This cascade of events tends to cause functional damage to the brain and rarely results in any true structural damage.