A recent article in WebMD told the harrowing tale of a 13-year old junior high school football player. It's not a story any parent would be comfortable hearing about but it does share a cautionary story for all parents and their young athletes.
At 13, Zackery Lystedt was a star player on his junior-high-school football team.
Then one game changed everything, said the report in WebMD.
It was the second quarter. Lystedt went down hard after making a tackle, clutching both sides of his helmet in pain. He shook it off and kept playing, taking hit after hit. Only later did his family find out that first impact had given him a concussion.
At the end of the game, Lystedt collapsed in his father's arms. He was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where surgeons determined he'd had multiple strokes. They removed the left and right sides of his skull -- the only way to relieve pressure -- and left the bone out.
He spent 2 months in a coma, 7 days on life support, and 93 days in the hospital. That was in 2006.
He's spent the last 8 years relearning how to walk, talk, and regain his independence.
WebMd reports that Lystedt told his story at a sports medicine conference at the American Academy of Pediatrics' annual meeting last week. His case helped spark a movement to create laws regarding concussions and young athletes -- laws that might have prevented his injury had they been in place 8 years ago.
Each year, about 4 million sports- and recreation-related concussions happen in the U.S., according to the CDC. Of those, many affect young people.
Most of the time, concussions are minor and people can spring back quickly and make a full recovery, says Stanley Herring, MD. He's a clinical professor and co-medical director of the Sports Concussion Program at University of Washington Medicine and Seattle Children's Hospital.
Herring told the conference that giving the injured time to recover is vital.
Over the years, experts have learned much more about concussions and their effects on the brain. "It's not the first concussion, but playing while concussed that can lead to rare and devastating consequences," Herring said.
Repetitive brain trauma, including concussions and even less-severe hits to the head, is linked with a worsening brain disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, reported WebMD.
