Concussions and kids: What parents need to know

Concussions are inevitable at every level of football, because it's a collision sport. Novant Health's Dr. Kip Corrington, a former college star and NFL player, discusses his personal history with concussions, what parents of young athletes need to consider, and steps to take if a young athlete sustains a concussion.

Transcript:
Cliff Mehrtens 0:07

Welcome to Novant Health Healthy Headlines. This is Cliff Mertens. Concussions get plenty of attention every football season. It's a violent sport based on collisions, and concussions are inevitable. They happen a lot at every level of football, but they can also occur in other sports, even for kids playing at recess or having fun time in the backyard. An estimated 283,000 children every year seek some sort of treatment in emergency departments for traumatic brain injury. Most of those traumatic brain injuries are concussions. For some insight into concussions, especially those in football. We talked to Novant Health Dr. Kip Corrington. He's a former college star and NFL player, Dr. Corrington can shares his personal and family history with concussions. Some advice for parents of young football players and other athletes, and what to look for if your youngster suffers. Be sure to stick around to the end. For an interesting connection between Dr. Corrington's career and mine. You can find stories like this and hundreds of others by searching Novant Health and Healthy Headlines. Thank you for listening.

Dr. Corrington, you played football for a long time. Did you ever have a concussion?

Dr. Kip Corrington 1:22

I had multiple concussions. Three major ones starting in high school. And the last one was in 1989. And there was a pretty significant one where I had to have a CT scan to be evaluated, make sure there wasn't any serious damage. And then on top of that, you know when you play football during a particular game, you probably have 15 to 20 mini concussions every game.

Cliff Mehrtens 1:51

Can you tell when that happens to you? When you're standing there after a play? Or maybe a play or two later? Can you tell that you're experiencing those symptoms?

Dr. Kip Corrington 1:57

Oh, yeah, we used to joke about it back in the day, because you know, it wasn't a serious thing, then we'd call it seeing stars or being dazed. And it was just part of it.

Cliff Mehrtens 2:11

You were expected to play through it, do you back then it's not the same now. But you are expected to play through those moments. What, do you have any scary stories about our funny stories about teammates who are wobbly, you could see it in the huddle or locker room or sideline teammate was really struggling with something like that.

Dr. Kip Corrington 2:28

Oh, yeah, we and again, it was a different time. And so back then it was kind of a badge of honor to play through even a major concussion at times. But those were the times when somebody would be taken out of the game was when they would literally pass out on the field. But again, it wasn't, we would be evaluated at a medical center if it was that severe. But when it comes to the small micro concussions, you know, that was just part of the game. And it probably is still is actually

Cliff Mehrtens 3:07

A violent collision can cause a concussion. But a lot of the CTE damage that we see in the spotlight these days from football and other sports is the accumulation of hits practice for months. Not so much what happens in a game. But talk about how that has an effect on athletes, especially football players. Repetitive 1-2000 hits per season for a high school player helmet to helmet hits, what what sort of damage that can do and how's that has come more into the spotlight?

Dr. Kip Corrington 3:38

Well, there's a lot we don't understand about it. And a lot of the data comes from post mortem data, unfortunately. So we don't really have a control group. But but the thinking is, and some of the computer simulations that they've used, it's not even the direct, head on blow. That's the problem. It's usually the kind of blows that cause torsion of the brain, a twisting of the brain. And they've used a lot of computer simulations to evaluate this. In fact, there's a guy out at Stanford that used to play and he does a lot of research in this area.

Cliff Mehrtens 4:14

What sort of advice would you give to a parent whose child was interested in playing football, and in regards to concussions, and maybe some concerns they might have?

Dr. Kip Corrington 4:24

I mean, I'll be honest with you, I was ecstatic when my son decided not to play. I didn't discourage him, because, you know, the team sports like football, there's so many good lessons to be learned from them, you, you become so close to your fellow teammates, it's a difficult sport. And so through that you learn a lot of life lessons. I think the main thing is just to understand what you're getting into and until the late 2000s, that really wasn't public knowledge. So but on the flip side, you can get a concussion, run your bike, you can get a concussion playing soccer, you can get a concussion, falling from you know, from a ladder in there's so many different ways that you can get concussions, it's just that with football, it's it's a surety. Because it is a part and parcel of the game.

Cliff Mehrtens 5:24

What sort of on a basic level, someone who's hasn't maybe a younger child just getting into the game, what should they look for what sort of symptoms would be indicative of some sort of concussion?

Dr. Kip Corrington 5:35

A major concussion would be loss of memory, some speech difficulty, headaches, dizziness, vomiting, could be part of it. The micro concussions are a little bit more difficult. Again, most people would describe it as seeing stars.

Cliff Mehrtens 5:54

And like you mentioned, it's not only football, football gets a lot of the attention because it's a collision sport. But a sport that gets a lot of has a lot of concussion rates is girls' soccer. Again, balls to the head, and head on head collisions wearing no protection. How do you guard against concussions in other sports and all sports overall, you really can't prevent them. But what are some preventative measures that maybe athletes can do to maybe limit their chances of this happening?

Dr. Kip Corrington 6:23

Well, I think with football, some of the rules changes can help. The helmets themselves are not designed to prevent concussion. They're designed to prevent fracture. But if you try to take your head out of the tackling as much as possible, well, that'll decrease your instance, unfortunately, you're going to have collisions that are accidental all the time. So other sports I you know, I think that in girls soccer, for example, or soccer in general, but girls I'm thinking about because I had a daughter that had to stop playing the because of concussions. You know, headgear might be an important thing in the future. Most of the concussion...