Largest effort to study concussions in young people underway in Texas

Texas is implementing the largest effort ever undertaken to track brain injuries among young athletes and the program launched last week.

According to various media reports, the University Interscholastic League, Texas’ governing body for public high school sports, is partnering with the O’Donnell Brain Institute at UT Southwestern Medical Center for the project.

The group hopes to gauge whether current rules or equipment changes are improving player safety and determine what more can be done to protect athletes.

“A state as large as Texas, which has more than 800,000 public high school athletes, would be a key step in developing a national database of brain injuries in youths, officials say. Already, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is seeking federal funding for such a database,” an article by The Dallas Morning News reads. “All 50 states in recent years have passed rules or laws to address concussions in youth athletics, from research to protocols for identifying concussions and setting rules for return to play.”

The CDC estimates approximately 3.8 million concussions occur in sports and recreational activities each year, but some experts think those numbers may be underestimated because when it comes to brain injuries, some people may not seek treatment for mild or moderate symptoms, therefore, they aren’t diagnosed.

The Texas study will collect more concussion data than has ever been gathered before. Currently, only one school from each district is required to report concussions as part of a weekly injury reporting system, though each school in the football playoffs is required to report concussions.“The Texas program will track about two dozen sports, from football to girls’ soccer, recording what caused an injury, recovery time and other data. Other states have researched head injuries, too,” the article reads. “In Michigan, which requires schools to report concussions, a recent concussion study showed 755 schools reported 4,452 head injuries in the 2015-16 school year. Football had the most — 1,907 — and girls’ basketball ranked No. 2 with 454.”