UA studies youth sports concussions

FAYETTEVILLE — Researchers at the University of Arkansas are studying how to better treat and diagnose concussions in youth sports.

R.J. Elbin, who leads the university’s office for sport concussion research, has been studying concussions since 2005. A former college baseball player at the University of New Orleans, Elbin said he suffered multiple concussions as an athlete, which prompted his interest in researching brain injuries.

“I feel like this is a very needed area of study,” Elbin said. “There are millions of kids negatively affected by concussion, and to be honest, until recently we haven’t done a very good job of getting the word out and making people aware of just how serious this injury can be.”

Elbin’s main areas of research include the effects of concussions in youth athletes and the time it takes for them to heal. The researchers are collecting data — such as cognitive skills — in athletes who have suffered concussions. Elbin said these studies have helped to develop better timelines for recovery.

“We know female athletes take longer to recover than males,” Elbin said. “We know that age is a modifying factor for recovery. Younger kids — high school and younger — typically demonstrate more prolonged recovery when compared to older athletes, and the reason for that is their brains are still developing and more sensitive to the metabolic consequences of this injury.”

Elbin estimates he is working with almost 2,000 athletes from local public schools, including the athletic programs at Rogers High.

Jesse Herrington, an athletic trainer at Rogers, said Elbin’s research team helps the school conduct baseline examinations. An athlete’s baseline score indicates how the brain operates when healthy and is compared with post-concussion evaluations to determine a return-to-play timeline.

“It’s very difficult to conduct baseline testing across all of our sports with just one athletic trainer,” Herrington said. “Having the manpower to test the hundreds of athletes that we do is a huge benefit.”

High-profile court cases have brought concussion management into the national spotlight in recent years. The National Football League and National Collegiate Athletic Association have been defendants in class-action lawsuits filed by players who claimed the organizations did not always properly educate players about concussion risks or properly treat the injury.

While concussions are common in several sports such as soccer and baseball, and in cheerleading, the most focus is paid to how the injury impacts football. Boston University researchers found chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated trauma, in 95.6 percent of more than 100 deceased former football players, according to a study released in September.

A Journal of American Medicine Association (JAMA) Pediatrics study published earlier this year stated that 1 in 30 youth football players ages 5 to 14 years old will suffer a concussion each season. A 17-year-old high school football player died in Chicago on Oct. 23 because of blunt-force trauma sustained when his head hit the ground during a game.

Collectively, those cases and others have changed how concussions are viewed by sport organizations, and spurred research into the injuries. Elbin said it is an exciting time to be a researcher in the field because of the many studies being released by other universities.

One such study is a collaborative effort between researchers at Virginia Tech University and Wake Forest University. The study assigns safety grades each year to football helmets worn by teams ranging from youth to professional football. Great attention is paid to that report, which has caused helmet manufacturers to change designs of their products to address safety.

Herrington said Rogers players are in their first year wearing a helmet manufactured by Simpson Ganassi because of positive reviews in the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest study. Members of the football team at Arkansas began transitioning to helmets manufactured by Riddell in 2014. The helmet line, SpeedFlex, has a design that places more padding toward the helmet crown, which is supposed to reduce the force of impact during helmet-to-helmet collisions.

“Almost our entire roster is in them now,” said Arkansas football coach Bret Bielema. “We have a certain obligation that we put our players in the most up-to-date, most efficient, safest helmet out there.”

Tevin Beanum, a defensive player at Arkansas, began to wear the SpeedFlex helmet after suffering his second concussion as a college athlete, he said.

“I haven’t had any issues since then,” Beanum said. “I feel like it fits a little tighter and conforms better, so it’s definitely boosted my confidence that I can play my hardest and not have to worry about those types of injuries.”

Despite equipment advances, Elbin said concussions cannot be completely eliminated in sports. That furthers the need to better understand and diagnose the injury once it does occur.

One way Elbin said he hopes to do that is through a pilot program called TeleConcussion, which allows athletes suffering from concussion symptoms to visit with a specialist located at a remote location.

“A parent may be in Little Rock and want to visit with a physician in Northwest Arkansas, or they may be in southern Arkansas and the pediatrician or physician needs to refer out to a specialist,” Elbin said. “We’re finding new ways to connect the health care with the patients.

“Concussion is an injury that can affect all areas of life. We have kids who have memory problems. We have kids who can’t be in busy environments and that develop other issues associated with the injury like depression or anxiety. Those types of complex pieces really drive this research.”