Most physicians, when asked, will say one concussion is one concussion too many.
But how many concussions do American children sustain playing football each year?
No one knows.
Diagnosis is always a problem. Beyond that, leagues don’t always keep or, for that matter, even receive notice of concussions.
Josh Prust, director of media relations for the 285,000-player Pop Warner organization, said Pop Warner only becomes aware of a concussion sustained during a game or practice if it is reported to its insurance carrier. He noted 12 concussions were reported last year but said, “Certainly, we know there were more than that.”
Smaller leagues seem to have, or at least share, even less information.
“Unfortunately, across the nation, there’s not a lot of data collected about youth injuries,” said Kathryn Gwaltney, assistant director of the National Center for Sports Safety. “High schools have governing bodies that require reports. But in youth football, you have mom-and-pop, little football leagues. They have small boards of directors making decisions and they don’t report to anyone and then you have parks and recreation (programs).”
Dr. Keith Festa, chief medical officer with St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie and 24-year physician for the Marlboro School District, said it’s estimated that between 1.6 million and 3.8 million kids sustain concussions in the U.S. annually playing high school sports.
But comparing figures from past years to attempt to judge whether concussions are on the rise is difficult.
“I think there probably is an increase,” Festa said. “The size (of athletes) is bigger, the speed is bigger, the impacts are stronger. But any time you heighten awareness with anything you’re going to see more of it.”
According to a December 2011 report by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, 21 percent of traumatic brain injuries suffered by kids in the U.S. were caused by sports and recreational activities.
Consumer Product Safety Commission data, which is cited by the AANS, concluded in 2009 nearly 47,000 people received emergency room treatment for head trauma suffered while playing football. Nearly 22,000 of those cases involved children 14 and under.
But that statistic only talks about ER visits, and health officials note most concussions are not treated in a hospital.
As a result, Dr. Frederick Mueller, director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, which, through a grant from the NCAA, the American Football Coaches Association and National Federation of State High School Associations, collects death and permanent disability injury data involving brain and/or spinal cord injuries incurred during sports, said it’s impossible to measure the impact of stepped-up safety measures in youth football.
“There is a total lack of concussion data for youth football,” he said. “(It’s) hard to tell if preventative measures have been successful in preventing concussions because nobody really knows the real number of concussions and you cannot compare the numbers used today with the lack of numbers from previous years.”