Concussions in Teens Can Take Up to 1 Year to Heal

Concussions in teenagers can take up to one year to completely heal, a North Texas doctor says.

Baylor Irving’s Dr. Bryan Wasson said concussions affect parts of the brain that are still growing and developing in teenagers.

“What we are finding is, the younger the brain, the more susceptible to injury,” he said.

Six months after sustaining a concession, high school quarterback Trey Moore playing again.

He was injured during the first game of the school year.

“[The] running back went out for a toss, and I came up to hit him, and I hit him low, and my helmet stringed to his knee first,” he said.

The junior blacked out.

“I got up, and everything just seemed really off,” Moore said.

But he kept playing and finished the first half of the game before going to the hospital.

He said that now, he’s a little more careful but still tries his hardest.

A study by the computerized concussion evaluation system ImPACT showed that only 10 percent of concussions that happen to high school football players actually get reported, Wasson said.

Wesson also said that studies by Virginia Tech and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center showed that about 60 percent or more of concussions happen during practice, not during games.

“Maybe we need to change the modality of which we are teaching our kids or what we’re doing during practice to minimize the frequency of head trauma,” he said.

The study by Virginia Tech and Wake Forest also showed that 7- and 8-year-olds had more than 740 impacts to the head during a typical season. Some equaled to 10 times the weight of the child

source: NBCDFW