Concussions are at the forefront of almost every conversation surrounding football, soccer and other sports on all levels from little league to the NFL. Many parents, coaches, trainers and professional athletes have expressed concern over how concussions are diagnosed and treated and the time between when an athlete sustains an injury and when he or she gets back on the field or court.
Dr. Michael Miller, Medical Director of St. Elizabeth Sports Medicine, recently discussed concussion recovery time with Local 12’s Liz Bonis.
Miller says balance tests and standard imaging tests of the brain still leave experts with the problem of making sure officials don’t send people back too early. But researchers with the National Institutes of Health recently followed college athletes throughout the entire season and compared those who did have a concussion to those that did not. They found the “Tau Protein” to be predictive in both male and female athletes. They found athletes that needed more than 10 days of recovery time after a concussion before returning to play had higher levels of the Tau Protein.
Click here to watch Dr. Miller and Liz Bonis discuss this research.
Want to learn more about concussion signs and treatment? Click here.
