Mild traumatic brain injury is really anything but mild. Brain Injuries are ranked or graded based on their degree of severity. Thus, a Mild traumatic brain injury is only mild when compared to a traumatic brain injury.
This injury impacts over a million injury victims every year. For many of these individuals a full recovery is achieved. However, many others are left with serious and long lasting impairments and disabilities.
But new research in the field of brain injuries, especially MTBI, is aiding doctors and physicians in the treatment of brain injuries and alerting the public to the need for more study and funding. And this is no more true than in the area of concussions or MTBI suffered by high school and college athletes.
The Journal of Neuropsychiatry has published extensively regarding the impact of MTBI on young athletes and the risks associated with MTBI and long term cognitive impairment.
What is needed is a reevaluation of how we assess the risk of MTBI in youth sports as well as the rate of repeated injury. Better imaging, better treatment techniques, and better protective equipment and rules of operation are desperately needed if we are to insure the safety of young people engaged in high school and college sports.
