Concussions and Prevention
In our last blog post, we talked about the 6 most common soccer injuries and showed you some good exercises to help prevent them. In this post, we want to shed some light on concussions and a few ways that may help guard against them. Again, before we go any further I just want to reiterate that no prevention techniques we currently have are 100% but we can always work to reduce our risk.
According to Ekstrand, who authored the paper our previous article referenced, concussion accounted for about 1.2% of injuries in elite male soccer players. This led to an average of 8.7 days absent from participation1. In addition, Prien and colleagues found that in adults 18 years and older the concussion incidence in women was 1.48 per 1000 game exposures (participation) and 0.13 per 1000 practice exposures. These were the 5th and 4th highest rates in sports studied by Prien2. Men’s soccer was similar with 1.07 per 1000 game exposures and 0.08 per 1000 practice exposures, which was 6th highest for each scenario2.
Now taking this a step further, Cheng and colleagues showed that females have 1.99 times the risk of concussion during basketball and 1.76 times the risk while playing soccer3. A nearly 2 times risk is pretty hefty in my opinion, especially when we talk about youth athletes. In fact, a systematic review by McGroarty found several studies that mentioned both physical and physiological reasons that women may be more prone to concussion while playing the same sport as male counterparts. While hormone differences are one possible explanation in the review, that is not as easily changed from a physical therapy or pre-hab perspective as the other findings that females typically have shorter neck dimensions, less head mass, and less neck girth4. In either case, having a stronger neck and trunk can help you improve control over your body and hopefully reduce the chance for concussion.
While we all know injuries are not 100% preventable, there are several ways we can minimize the risk: strengthening the neck and core, playing within the contact rules for your sport, and minimizing exposure to body to body and body to surface contact with good body control and landing mechanics. Check out my Instagram for some examples!
1. Ekstrand J, Krutsch W, Spreco A, et al. Time before return to play for the most common injuries in professional football: a 16-year follow-up of the UEFA Elite Club Injury Study. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2020; 54:421-426.
2. Prien A, Grafe A, Rössler R, Junge A, Verhagen E. Epidemiology of Head Injuries Focusing on Concussions in Team Contact Sports: A Systematic Review. Sports Medicine. 2018;48(4):953–69.
3. Cheng J, Ammerman B, Santiago K, Jivanelli B, Lin E, Casey E, Ling D. Sex-Based Differences in the Incidence of Sports-Related Concussion: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Sports Health. 2019 Nov/Dec;11(6):486-491. doi:10.1177/1941738119877186. Epub 2019 Sep 30. PMID: 31567052; PMCID: PMC6822209.
4. McGroarty NK, Brown SM, Mulcahey MK. Sport-Related Concussion in Female Athletes: A Systematic Review. Orthop J Sports Med. 2020 Jul 16;8(7):2325967120932306. doi: 10.1177/2325967120932306. PMID: 32728590; PMCID: PMC7366411.
