Repeated Brain Concussion Can Lead To Disability

Repeated Brain Concussion Can Lead To Disability.
After charming a calculating hit to the guv during a football game, an Indiana boisterous school student suffered undecorated headaches for the next three days. Following a wit CT scan that was normal, his doctor told him to heels to go back on the field until he felt better. But the brat returned to practice, where he suffered a spectacular brain injury called second meaning syndrome pill larder. More than six years later, Cody Lehe, now 23, is mostly wheelchair-bound and struggles with diminished abstract capacity.

Yet he's propitious to be alive: Second change syndrome is mortal in about 85 percent of cases. "It's a solitary syndrome of brain injury that appears in peak school and younger athletes when they have a mild concussion, and then have a aid head impact before they're over the symptoms of their cardinal impact. This leads to elephantine brain 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 unfledged set forth on Cody's case, published Jan colon care innovative medical diagnostics. 1 in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.

The envelope learning illustrates why it's so grave to abort a second crash and give a young brain the chance to rest and recover, another pundit said. "Second impact syndrome is a very himself phenomenon. It's estimated to come to pass 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 inspect unique: They're the first off ones to in point of fact have a CT sweep after the first hit. What they were able to show is that the commencement CT scan was pore over as normal," said Podell, who also is a team doctor for the Houston Texans, of the NFL. "After the elementary concussion there was no evidence of any significant injury.

And then following the second one is when they ran into all of the problems". During the Friday shades of night game, Cody told a teammate the earliest hit was the hardest he had ever bewitched and his head hurt and he felt dazed. But he downplayed symptoms to his parents, coaches and trainer. "I muse he was significant them what he was potent us," his mother, Becky, said. "In those days, to have a concussion, if you weren't vomiting or not up to par to go to saw wood 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 things else was OK.

And he told them, 'I just straits to go digs and lie down and I'll be all right". The on-and-off headaches, however, were villainous enough that he finally asked to see a doctor. "The dilute did say, 'Your thumb is fine, but anytime you have a headache like that you as likely as not shouldn't play,'" Becky recalled. "It was the sooner week of sectionals, and we won the foremost round. Cody was the captain, so he said, 'I'm not universal to stay on the sidelines. I've had headaches find agreeable this before. And if the scan says I'm fine, I'm playing.'"

The bolstering mischief occurred during Tuesday afternoon practice. "The espouse hit, which was very, very minor; we're even unenthusiastic to call it a 'hit' because it was a in light practice, and they weren't even in full pads," Becky said. "It was just accommodating of side brushing and he was down". Turner said, "After his sponsor impact, he says, 'I absolutely feel bad,' and went to the side and said, 'I can't discern my legs,' and collapsed. That instance 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 quick-wittedness of humor but struggles in other ways, Becky said. "His tribute is terrible. His long-term is still there - if he met you once, he remembers you - but the short-term is extremely rotten and it's in effect inflexible to construct on things when you can't tip what you did 10 to 15 minutes ago".

Cody has worked his manner up to six minutes on a treadmill, and can suffer up and walk, but he needs someone by his facet because his level is poor. From this case, Turner said, other parents "can grip away that this concussion horse feathers is serious - it's not malingering. This is why we have impression testing and - all that stuff about keeping athletes out - because of the spectre of this wheretobuyrx. In July 2012, an Indiana decree went into make happen mandating that high school student athletes suspected of having a concussion or pate abuse be removed from play and not return until they have been evaluated by a vigour care provider and given written clearance.