In a soccer recreation on September 25, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa acquired the go off however he acquired knocked down. Followers watched him shake his head and stumble to the bottom as he tried to jog it off. After a medical test, he went again into the sport towards the Buffalo Payments with what his coach later stated was a again damage.
4 days later, in a recreation towards the Cincinnati Bengals, Tagovailoa, 24, acquired hit once more. This time, he left the sphere on a stretcher with what was later identified as a concussion.
Many observers suspect that the primary hit — given Tagovailoa’s subsequent headshaking and wobbliness — left the athlete with a concussion, additionally known as a gentle traumatic mind damage. If these have been certainly indicators of a head damage, that first hit might have lined him up for a good worse mind damage simply days later.
“The science tells us that sure, an individual who continues to be recovering from a concussion is at an elevated danger for sustaining one other concussion,” says Kristen Dams-O’Connor, a neuropsychologist and director of the Mind Damage Analysis Middle on the Icahn College of Drugs at Mount Sinai in New York Metropolis. As one instance, a concussion roughly doubled the possibility of a second one amongst younger Swedish males, researchers reported in 2013 within the British Medical Journal.
“This, I believe, was avoidable,” Dams-O’Connor says of Tagovailoa’s mind damage within the recreation towards the Bengals.
After a success to the top, when the comfortable mind hits the unyielding cranium, the damage kicks off a cascade of modifications. Some nerve cells turn into overactive, irritation units in, and blood circulation is altered. These downstream occasions within the mind — and the way they relate to concussion signs — can occur over hours and days, and are usually not simple to rapidly measure, Dams-O’Connor says.
That makes diagnosing a concussion difficult. Clinicians typically must depend on sufferers saying they really feel off or fuzzy. Skilled athletes won’t be wanting to share these signs if it means they’ll be sidelined. “These are elite athletes who’re conditioned to suck it up,” Dams-O’Connor says.
Different indicators can point out a concussion, corresponding to an individual’s gait or pupil dilation. “As clinicians, we are sometimes triangulating a number of sources of data to make that decision — was this or was this not a concussion?” Dams-O’Connor says. The scientific uncertainty in that decision ought to lead clinicians to err on the aspect of warning, she says.
After a traumatic mind damage, recuperation is essential. “It’s a lot worse when a person isn’t given the right time to relaxation and recuperate and will get a second affect in a detailed time frame,” says Daniel Daneshvar, a mind damage medication physician and neuroscientist at Mass Normal Brigham in Boston and Harvard Medical College. Wanting on the brains of mice after two close-together hits, researchers have seen indicators of worse injury and an extended restoration (SN: 2/5/16).
For athletes, that vulnerability is available in half from concussion signs themselves. Slowed response occasions, dizziness and double imaginative and prescient confound a quick-moving quarterback who must dodge tackles and see opponents coming from the aspect. These signs can result in additional damage to the top — and to the remainder of the physique. A concussion will increase the dangers of decrease extremity accidents, in response to a latest evaluation of Nationwide Soccer League gamers revealed in August in Arthroscopy, Sports activities Drugs, and Rehabilitation.
What’s extra, a therapeutic mind is extra vulnerable to jarring. Whereas the mind continues to be recovering within the weeks after an damage, “your threshold for getting a concussion is decrease,” Daneshvar says. A lighter hit, researchers suspect, can do extra injury. A uncommon situation known as second affect syndrome illustrates an excessive consequence of successive mind accidents. This catastrophic, typically deadly mind swelling occurs when a still-healing mind is hit once more.
That’s not what occurred to Tagovailoa. However two concussions shut collectively can delay restoration, Dams-O’Connor emphasizes. “I believe individuals decrease how life-altering that may be.”
In an announcement, the NFL and the NFL Gamers Affiliation introduced that they’re collectively investigating whether or not their concussion protocols have been adopted on this case. Tagovailoa might have been allowed again into that first recreation as a result of his stumbling was attributed — appropriately or not — to a again damage, not a mind damage. The NFL and NFLPA are contemplating altering the protocol to maintain a participant out of a recreation for any apparent motor instability, no matter trigger.
For now, Tagovailoa is shifting by the levels of restoration outlined within the concussion protocol. In a social media publish on September 30, Tagovailoa thanked his workforce, family and friends and everybody who has reached out in assist. “I’m feeling significantly better and centered on recovering so I can get again out on the sphere with my teammates,” he wrote.