On Tuesday the National Athletic Trainers’ Association held the Youth Sports Safety Summit in Washington, DC and an important research project was released examining the differences in symptoms being reported by male and female athletes.
The paper will be published in the January edition of Journal of Athletic Training but here are the highlights and take home message. (By the way the author was R. Dawn Comstock of Ohio State University).
- 2 year study
- 800+ subjects
- 9 different sports
- Most frequent symptoms of headache/nausea in both male/female
- Males more often reported fogginess, slowed down, amnesia and disorientation
- Females more often reported sleep disturbances, balance issues, drowsiness and sensitivity (lights and sounds)
It is important to make sure the symptoms that females show more often are not overlooked or associated to other issues. Gender-based differences is an issue that has not been researched fully, but this is a good beginning. The more we can understand how the brains are reacting to the concussion, the better we can be at identifying it.
Seeing what conclusion Comstock has with this information will be interesting.
