Tua Tagovailoa, the Miami Dolphins quarterback, received the pass in a game on September 25. However, he was knocked unconscious. As he attempted to jog it off, he was seen shaking his head and falling to the ground. He was later diagnosed with a back injury and returned to the game against Buffalo Bills after a medical check.
Tagovailoa was again hit four days later in a game against Cincinnati Bengals. He was then taken to the hospital with what was later confirmed as a concussion.
Many observers suspect that the first hit — given Tagovailoa’s subsequent headshaking and wobbliness — left the athlete with a concussion, also called a mild traumatic brain injury. If these were signs of a head injury then Tagovailoa’s first hit could have set him up for a worse brain injury days later.
“The science tells us that yes, a person who is still recovering from a concussion is at an elevated risk for sustaining another concussion,” says Kristen Dams-O’Connor, a neuropsychologist and director of the Brain Injury Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. One example is: The chance of having a second concussion is roughly twice as high.Researchers from Sweden found that young men in their twenties were more likely to be successful than those who were born in other countries. British Medical Journal.
“This, I think, was avoidable,” Dams-O’Connor says of Tagovailoa’s brain injury in the game against the Bengals.
A head hit causes the brain to contact the skull. This triggers a series of events. Some nerve cells become hyperactive and inflammation develops, which alters blood flow. These downstream events in the brain — and how they relate to concussion symptoms — can happen over hours and days, and are not easy to quickly measure, Dams-O’Connor says.
It is difficult to diagnose concussions. Many times, doctors have to rely upon patients describing feeling fuzzy or off-color. Professional athletes might not be eager to share those symptoms if it means they’ll be sidelined. “These are elite athletes who are conditioned to suck it up,” Dams-O’Connor says.
Other signs can indicate a concussion, such as a person’s gait or pupil dilation. “As clinicians, we are often triangulating multiple sources of information to make that call — was this or was this not a concussion?” Dams-O’Connor says. She believes clinicians should be wary of the uncertainty that this call presents.
After a traumatic brain injury, recuperation is crucial. “It’s much worse when an individual isn’t given the proper time to rest and recover and gets a second impact in a close period of time,” says Daniel Daneshvar, a brain injury medicine doctor and neuroscientist at Mass General Brigham in Boston and Harvard Medical School. Researchers have found signs of inflammation in the brains and skulls of mice following two hits. Worse damage and a slower recovery (SN: 2/5/16).
Concussion symptoms can make athletes vulnerable. Slow reaction times, dizziness, and double vision can all be a problem for a fast-moving quarterback who must dodge tackles and see the opponents from the side. Those symptoms can lead to further injury to the head — and to the rest of the body. A concussion Risikens are increasedAccording to a new analysis of National Football League players, there are a lot of lower extremity injuries. Sports Medicine, Rehabilitation and Arthroscopy.
What’s more, a healing brain is more susceptible to jarring. While the brain is still recovering in the weeks after an injury, “your threshold for getting a concussion is lower,” Daneshvar says. Researchers suspect that a smaller impact could cause more damage. The extreme result of multiple brain injuries is illustrated by the second impact syndrome, a rare condition. This is a fatal, sometimes fatal, condition that occurs when the brain of a still healing patient is struck again.
That’s not what happened to Tagovailoa. But two concussions close together can delay recovery, Dams-O’Connor emphasizes. “I think people minimize how life-altering that can be.”
The NFL and the NFL Players Association released a joint statement stating that they will jointly investigate whether the concussion protocol was followed in this instance. Tagovailoa may have been allowed back into that first game because his stumbling was attributed — correctly or not — to a back injury, not a brain injury. The NFL and NFLPA may change the protocol to prevent a player from playing in a game for motor instability.
Tagovailoa is currently undergoing the stages of concussion recovery as outlined in the protocol. Tagovailoa posted a September 30th social media post. Thanks!His team, his family, friends, and all those who have reached out to him for support are: “I’m feeling much better and focused on recovering so I can get back out on the field with my teammates,” he wrote.
