Non-concussion Head Impacts In Contact Sports Could Result In Lower Test Scores

Non-concussion Head Impacts In Contact Sports Could Result In Lower Test Scores

Blows to the head that do not result inc concussion can affect cognitive performance. Watch you child for school or emotional problems. 
 Perhaps athletes in high risk sports should be tested before and after the season?
JR

Non-concussion head impacts in sports that involve physical contact as normal play can lead to brain changes and result in lower test scores, a new study suggests.

Based on a recent study, repeated blows to the head during a season of contact sports such as football, hockey or boxing, may cause changes in the brain's white matter - tissue that contain nerve fibers -  and affect cognitive abilities even if none of the impacts resulted in a concussion.

 Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College found significant differences in the brain white matter of varsity football and hockey players compared with a group of non-contact sport athletes following one season of competition.

"The contact sports and non-contact sports groups differed, and the number of times the contact sports participants were hit, and the magnitude of the hits they sustained, were correlated with changes in the white matter measures," Thomas W. McAllister, M.D., chair of Indiana University's Department of Psychiatry, said in a statement.

Researchers also found that head impact in contact sports may also affect an athlete's performance.

"In addition, there was a group of contact sports athletes who didn't do as well as predicted on tests of learning and memory at the end of the season, and we found that the amount of change in the white matter measures was greater in this group," McAllister said