40 Fun Facts About Concussion

Which part of the woodpecker skeleton, studied in concussion research, winds around the outside of the skull?

The tongue bone, or hyoid, is enormously long in woodpeckers. It splits in two around the spine and curls over the braincase before ending in the right nostril cavity.

The word concussion comes from the Latin verb concutere, which carries what meaning?

To shake violently is the sense of concutere, built from com, together, and quatere. English took up the word around 1400 for a bruising injury to the head.

Which sign, often assumed to mark every concussion, occurs in fewer than one in ten child sports cases?

Passing out happens in under 10% of sports concussions among children, so staying conscious is no all-clear. Headache is the symptom reported most often.

Which activity, long rumoured to be dangerous after a concussion, does NHS head-injury advice allow?

Going to sleep is fine: the NHS says you or your child do not need to stay awake if tired. It does ask that an adult stays with the injured person for at least the first 24 hours.

Which actor played pathologist Bennet Omalu in the 2015 film Concussion, earning a Golden Globe nomination?

Will Smith played the doctor who took on the NFL in a film drawn from Game Brain, a 2009 magazine exposé by Jeanne Marie Laskas. It took $48 million worldwide.

Which name did pathologist Harrison Martland give in 1928 to brain damage in fighters hit in the head?

Punch drunk was Martland's label for the tremors, slowed movement and confusion he saw in boxers. He was also the pathologist who proved radium was killing watch-dial painters.

Which sport gives a name to the pose in which a concussed athlete's forearms briefly stiffen in mid-air?

Fencing lends the response its name because the raised arms resemble the en garde position that opens a bout. The pose lasts only moments and signals force reaching the brainstem.

Which American novelist, concussed in a London car crash, went to the Normandy landings in a head bandage?

Ernest Hemingway was in hospital with the concussion when his wife Martha Gellhorn reached London. Plane crashes in Africa in 1954 left him with another serious head injury.

After an uncomplicated concussion, what do routine CT and MRI scans of the brain typically show?

Nothing abnormal appears, because a concussion disturbs how brain cells work rather than the structure a scanner sees. Scans are ordered mainly to rule out more serious injuries.

US youth soccer rules adopted in 2016 to cut concussions bar players aged 10 and under from doing what?

Heading the ball is off limits to them in practice and in games. A deliberate header in a match now hands the opposing team an indirect free kick.

Which everyday cause accounts for roughly half of all concussions in children, ahead of sport and road accidents?

Falls lie behind about 48% of childhood concussions. Among teenagers the picture changes, and most concussions happen while playing sport.

KidsHealth advises teenagers recovering from a concussion to avoid which pastime entirely for the first two days?

Screen time is ruled out for two days, and that covers TVs, computers and smartphones. Talking with family and friends, reading, drawing or a quiet game are all fine.

What do guidelines now recommend from a day or two after a concussion, having found it can improve recovery?

Aerobic exercise that raises the heart rate is advised after no more than one to two days of relative rest. Prolonged rest may slow healing and bring greater depression and anxiety.

Which eye sign after a blow to the head points beyond concussion to a more serious brain injury?

Unequal pupils are not a concussion symptom at all and call for emergency assessment. Other red flags include repeated vomiting, a worsening headache and seizures.

Which medical term names the loss of memory for events after the blow, a hallmark of concussion?

Amnesia after a concussion usually clears within 24 hours. A concussed person may also repeat the same questions, answer slowly or wear a vacant stare.

Which term do doctors use for the ringing in the ears that is commonly reported after a concussion?

Tinnitus joins dizziness, nausea and poor balance among the physical symptoms of concussion, though headache remains the one reported most often.

CTE, the brain disease linked to repeated concussions, can be definitively diagnosed only by which procedure?

An autopsy is still the only way to confirm the disease, because its telltale deposits show up in brain tissue under the microscope. Researchers are working on tests for the living.

The coma scale used to grade head injuries, on which concussion scores 13 to 15, is named after which Scottish city?

Glasgow gave the scale its name after Bryan Jennett and Graham Teasdale devised it at the city's medical school. It runs from 3, completely unresponsive, to 15, fully alert.

A collection of ancient Greek medical works that mentions concussion is named after which physician?

Hippocrates lends his name to the Hippocratic Corpus, which describes loss of speech, hearing and sight after a commotion of the brain. That view of concussion lasted into the 19th century.

What surrounds the brain and cushions it from light knocks, though not from the forces behind a concussion?

Cerebrospinal fluid lets the brain float: an organ of about 1,400 grams has a net weight of only 25 to 50 grams while suspended in it.

Which kind of force on the head is thought to be the major component in causing a concussion?

Rotational force matters most, and the midbrain bears the brunt of it. A boxer's blow can deliver more of it than the typical hit in American football.

After a concussion, brain cells suffer an energy crisis as supplies of which sugar run short of demand?

Glucose is burned fast as cells pump ions back into balance, just as reduced circulation delivers less of it. In animal studies the slump in metabolism that follows lasts up to four weeks.

Which substance clumps abnormally in the brains of people with CTE, the disease tied to repeated concussions?

Tau protein normally helps to stabilise brain cells, but in CTE it misfolds and spreads even after the hits stop. Bennet Omalu found large accumulations of it in a former footballer's brain.

The Brain Trauma Indicator, approved in the US in 2018 to spare some concussion patients a CT scan, tests what?

Blood is all it needs. The test can help to rule out bleeding inside the skull in adults, and with it the need for a scan.

What name is given to the rare, often fatal brain swelling when a further blow lands before a concussion has healed?

Second-impact syndrome can make the brain stem fail within five minutes as pressure inside the skull soars. Outside boxing, every recorded case has involved an athlete under 20.

Bennet Omalu, the pathologist who first reported CTE in an American football player, was born in which country?

Nigeria was in the grip of civil war when Omalu was born in 1968, and his family had fled their village. He finished medical school at 21 and later moved to the United States.

Bennet Omalu first found CTE in a football player's brain while studying which late Pittsburgh Steelers center in 2002?

Mike Webster, nicknamed Iron Mike, anchored the line through four Super Bowl wins. His brain looked normal to the naked eye, and the damage appeared only under special staining.

Elliot Pellman, who chaired the NFL's first concussion committee from 1994, was a specialist in which field of medicine?

Rheumatology, the care of joints and arthritis, was Pellman's field, and critics complained that he was no neurologist. His committee long disputed any link between football and lasting brain damage.

League of Denial, the 2013 documentary on the NFL's concussion crisis, was broadcast by which US network?

PBS aired it on Frontline after ESPN, an original partner, backed out citing a lack of editorial control. The film went on to win a Peabody Award.

The 2009 Lystedt Law, which benches athletes with a suspected concussion until cleared, was enacted in which US state?

Washington acted after the family of a 13-year-old football player, concussed in a 2006 game, campaigned for the rule. Every other state has since passed a similar law.

Marnus Labuschagne became Test cricket's first concussion substitute in 2019 after a bouncer from which England bowler?

Jofra Archer's bouncer struck Australia's star batter on the neck at Lord's. Labuschagne, his replacement, finished 2019 as the year's highest Test run-scorer.

Which Pittsburgh Penguins captain was sidelined for most of the 2011–12 NHL season by a concussion?

Sidney Crosby took blows to the head in consecutive games in January 2011, the first at the outdoor Winter Classic. He later led the Penguins to Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017.

Which NASCAR driver's run of 461 consecutive races ended in 2012 because of a concussion from a crash at Talladega?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sat out two races that October after a 25-car pile-up on the last lap. Concussion symptoms returned in 2016 and ended his season early.

Which Harvard football player turned WWE wrestler co-founded the Concussion Legacy Foundation?

Chris Nowinski left wrestling after a kick to the head in 2003 brought lasting symptoms. He wrote Head Games in 2006, a book that later became a documentary.

The coroner who found that football had damaged striker Jeff Astle's brain recorded which verdict on his 2002 death?

Industrial disease was the verdict: the coroner blamed repeated minor traumas from the leather footballs of Astle's era, which were far heavier when wet. He scored 137 league goals for West Bromwich Albion.

Which women's NCAA sport, despite banning body checks, was found to have a higher concussion rate than college football?

Ice hockey for women was put at 2.72 concussions per 1,000 player hours, above college football's 2.34. The men's game, which allows checking, came in 46% lower.

Which tackle, outlawed in American football in 1976 and tied to high injury rates, leads with the crown of the helmet?

Spearing turns the tackler's body into a spear, with the head out and the arms by the sides. Enforcing the ban is among the rule measures put forward to prevent concussions.

Which 10th-century Persian physician was the first to write about concussion as distinct from other head injuries?

Rhazes, also known as al-Razi, defined concussion as a transient loss of function with no physical damage. That definition shaped medical thinking about the condition for centuries.

Which German midfielder, concussed in the 2014 World Cup final, asked the referee whether the match was the final?

Christoph Kramer played on for 14 minutes after colliding with Argentina's Ezequiel Garay before he was taken off. He had only started because Sami Khedira was hurt just before kick-off.

For swelling after a minor head injury such as concussion, the NHS suggests a cold pack or a bag of what?

Frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel can be held to the bump for short periods over the first few days. The same advice rules out contact sport for at least three weeks.