A Brain Concussion Can Lead To Fatigue, Depression And Lack Of Libido

A Brain Concussion Can Lead To Fatigue, Depression And Lack Of Libido.
Former NFL players who had concussions during their hurtle could be more disposed to to familiarity depression later in life, and athletes who racked up a lot of these head injuries could be at even higher risk, two additional studies contend. The findings are especially timely following a report last week that a capacity autopsy of former NFL player Junior Seau, who committed suicide last May, revealed signs of dyed in the wool traumatic encephalopathy, likely due to multiple hits to the head. The brawl - characterized by impulsivity, depression and erratic behavior - is only diagnosed after death.

The start of the two studies of retired athletes found that the more concussions that players reported suffering, the more expected they were to have depressive symptoms, most commonly fatigue and lack of sex drive. The second study, involving many of the same athletes, worn brain imaging to identify areas that could be involved with these symptoms, and found vast white matter damage among former players with depression.

The research, released on Jan 16, 2013 will be presented in March at the American Academy of Neurology convergence in San Diego. "We were very surprised to confer with that many of the athletes had high amounts of depressive symptoms," said Nyaz Didehbani, a delving psychologist at the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas and lead prime mover of the first study.

The study included 34 retired NFL players, as well as 29 fit men who did not play football. The men's average age was about 60. All the athletes had suffered at least one concussion, with four being the average. The researchers excluded athletes who showed signs of crazy reduction such as memory problems because they wanted to study depression alone.

Overall, the former players in the swot had more depressive symptoms than the other participants, and the athletes who had more symptoms had also suffered more concussions. "The life of these depressed athletes seems to be a little different than the average population that has depression". Instead of the awful and pessimistic feelings that are often associated with depression, the athletes tend to experience symptoms such as fatigue, scarcity of sex drive and sleep changes.

And "Most of the athletes did not realize that those kinds of symptoms were interdependent to depression because, I think, they associated them with the physical pain from playing professional football". The doctors who upon former football players should let them know that fatigue and sleep problems could be symptoms of depression. "One eulogistic thing is that depression is a treatable illness".

Symptoms Of A Concussion For Boys And Girls Are Different

Symptoms Of A Concussion For Boys And Girls Are Different.
Among weighty set of beliefs athletes, girls who suffer concussions may have different symptoms than boys, a remodelled study finds. The findings suggest that boys are more likely to report amnesia and confusion/disorientation, whereas girls show to report drowsiness and greater sensitivity to noise more often. "The take-home report is that coaches, parents, athletic trainers, and physicians must be observant for all signs and symptoms of concussion, and should own that young male and female athletes may present with different symptoms," said R Dawn Comstock, an initiator of the study and an associate professor of pediatrics at the Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus.

The findings are slated to be presented Tuesday at the National Athletic Trainers' Association's (NATA) sponsor Youth Sports Safety Summit in Washington, DC. More than 60000 percipience injuries befall among high school athletes every year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although more males than females participate in sports, female athletes are more favoured to bear sports-related concussions, the researchers note. For instance, girls who engage in high school soccer suffer almost 40 percent more concussions than their virile counterparts, according to NATA.

The findings suggest that girls who suffer concussions might sometimes go undiagnosed since symptoms such as drowsiness or perception to noise "may be overlooked on sideline assessments or they may be attributed to other conditions". For the study, Comstock and her co-authors at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, examined evidence from an Internet-based scrutiny system for high school sports-related injuries. The researchers looked at concussions intricate in interscholastic sports practice or competition in nine sports (boys' football, soccer, basketball, wrestling and baseball and girls' soccer, volleyball, basketball and softball) during the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 institution years at a archetypal sample of 100 high schools. During that time, 812 concussions (610 in boys and 202 in girls) were reported.

In putting together to noting the commonness of each reported symptom among males and females, the researchers compared the unqualified number of symptoms, the time it took for symptoms to resolve, and how soon the athletes were allowed to return to play. Based on preceding studies, the researchers thought that girls would report more concussion symptoms, would have to hang around longer for symptoms to resolve, and would take longer to return to play. However, there was no gender alteration in those three areas.