Number of Medical Complaints Before Concussion may Help Predict Recovery Time

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In this study, 2,055 high school and college athletes were asked to participate to help researchers better understand how their medical complaints, such as aches and pains, may take longer to dissipate after a concussion. Researchers assessed each participant for balance, thinking and memory skills along with psychological symptoms, such as depression or anxiety, and psychosomatic symptoms, such as feeling faint or dizzy, nausea or upset stomach or pains in the chest or heart. Psychosomatic symptoms are forms of psychological distress that are being expressed as physical illness or pain. “The goal of this study was to determine how physical complaints before and after concussion play a role in recovery,” said study author Lindsay D. Nelson, PhD, assistant professor of Neurosurgery and Neurology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. “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.” To read more on this study, click here

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