Concussions in High School Sports in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia 2008-2017

Abstract

The incidence and prevalence of sport-related concussion has increased over the past decade as a result of an increase in athletic participation, improved diagnostic methods, and an overall increased awareness of the symptoms and signs of concussions. This is a retrospective study identifying high school athletes in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia who participated in baseline and post-concussion neurocognitive ImPACT testing from 2008-2017. A total of p40 unique first post injury tests were performed, and a total of 9,850 unique baseline tests were perlormed. The athletes were baseline tested at the beginning of their freshman and junior years. New students and any student who had had a concussion in the previous year were tested prior to starting, their respective sport season. The number of post-concussion tests was compared to the number of baseline tests and stratified each year by age, sex, and sport. Comparing our findings with the incidence by sport reported in the medical literature demonstrated that the same sports identified as being the highest and lowest risk were generally congruent with the sports reported to be the highest and lowest risk in two large literature reviews » B. The notable exception was cheerleading; our study found it to be among the sports with a higher incidence of concussion. A review of the literature demonstrated that cheerleaders, like participants in other contact sports, are at significant risk for concussion. Previously concussion rates in cheerleading bad been reported to be relatively low (4- 6% of cheerleading injuries) compared to other injuries and compared to concussion rates in other sports. However, concussions were noted to be the most common cheerleading injury, accounting for 31.1% of injuries. " and also reported that the number and rate of cheerleading related concussions had increased by 290% from 2001 to 2012.