Sports concussions increase risk of injury: Study

Concussions are an unfortunate part of junior and senior level contact sports. Sports specialists at the University of South Australia are now recommending that child athletes suffering from head trauma take longer to recuperate, citing new data that suggests a concussion can increase future injury risk by 50%. Published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, the world-first study tracked and evaluated the long-term impact of concussion and subsequent injury risk of 1455 sub-elite junior Australian rules football players. This builds on previous UniSA research that found an approximate 1.5-fold increased risk of injury of sub-elite Australian rules football players returning from an injury, compared to those with no injury. Tracking injuries over a seven-season period, researchers found that football players who suffered a concussion were also about 1.5 times more likely to be reinjured in the future when compared to players who had never been injured. This increased risk was the same as players returning from upper and lower limb injuries. The finding comes ahead of the Australian Senate’s report into concussion injuries, and follows the AFL’s announcement for a $25 million study into the long-term effects of concussions and head knocks.