A study has found that athletes who have had previous psychosomatic symptoms could be affected by recovery rate of concussion.
Researchers conducted a study recently published in the journal Neurology that involved 127 high school and college athletes, the majority of which were male, who had suffered head injuries while playing various sports, 66 percent of which were sustained during football. The results showed that concussion recovery was much longer in those that had already experienced some sort of psychosomatic symptoms in the past.
The study’s lead author, Lindsay Nelson an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin, says the findings help predict how well an athlete will recover after a head injury despite good general health, fitness and psychological well-being.
“We found the greatest predictor of recovery after a concussion was the severity of early post-concussion symptoms. But somatic complaints before injury also play an important role, either by possibly enhancing how a person experiences the injury or affecting their reporting of post-concussive symptoms”.
The researchers found that the average recovery time from concussion was around 5 days with this rising to 20 days if psychosomatic symptoms were previously apparent.
Contributing factors included the degree of severity in the individual with those with more serious injuries took longer to heal.
Lindsay believes the results from this study will go on to help further research and develop strategies to maximize the ability to treat serious head injuries as soon as they happen and help those that suffer from concussions with a faster recovery.
“Our hope is our study will lead to further research, because identifying those at risk for prolonged recovery is critical to developing early interventions that improve outcomes for people who suffer concussions.”