All Articles by Lindsay Barton

Outsmarting or "sandbagging" a baseline neuropsychological test is much harder than an athlete may think, say two recent studies, because they are programmed to automatically "flag" test protocols that seem suspicious.

There is good news and bad news in a new study on exertional heat illness in high school sports: the bad news is that the rate for football players is 11 times higher that of all other sports combined. The good news is that, despite a rash of heat-related deaths (6 in 2011 alone, all in football), the overall rate of EHI across all high school sports is low and dropping.

An increase in time spent in physical education class helps kids develop stronger muscles and that increasing weekly physical activity does not increase the risk of bone fractures, says a new Swedish study. That's fine, but there's one problem: P.E. time in the U.S. is declining, not increasing, with predictable results.

What factors predict which athletes recover quickly from concussion and which will take longer has proved to be a vexing question. A new study suggests an elegantly simple and intuitive answer: the athletes who take longer to recover report the most severe symptoms right after injury; the more severe the initial symptoms, the more likely a longer recovery.

The most recent international consensus statement on sport-related concussions identifies several important differences in the way concussions are diagnosed and treated in children and adolescents, including the need for age-appropriate symptom checklists, additional cognitive rest and a longer recovery period before return to sports.

Concussion experts agree that the taking of a detailed concussion history as part of a student-athlete's preparticipation physical evaluation is valuable because it can identify athletes at high risk of further injury, provides an opportunity for concussion education, and modifying playing style to reduce risk.

Balanced neck strength may reduce the acceleration of the head during the act of heading a soccer ball, thus reducing the risk of brain injury from such low grade hits, says a new study (1). The study adds to a growing body of evidence that strengthening neck muscles may be a way to reduce head injury risk from concussion and repetitive sub-concussive trauma.

There is good news and bad news on the youth sports injury front. The good news is that sports and recreation musculoskeletal injuries declined 12.4 percent in the U.S. over the past 10 years for children ages 5 to 14 years. The bad news: injuries in football and soccer went up, says a new study.

A "concussion" is the historical term representing low-velocity injuries that cause brain "shaking." The word is derived from the Latin concutere, meaning to shake violently. It is a subset of mTBI (mild traumatic brain injury.

A survey of high school athletic directors, coaches, and certified athletic trainers in Michigan finds that, while concussion education is very common in football, less than half of girls' soccer players received such education.