Researchers at Orlando Health, a private, not-for-profit network of community and specialty hospitals, have created a simple blood test that can detect concussions up to seven days after an incident, promising another way for doctors to manage the risks of injury to the brain.
Concussions in the playing field are common. The problem has been diagnosing brain injuries right after they happen. Coaches and players need to know how severe their injury is so they can determine proper treatment and time needed to be spent off the field.
Organizations such as the NCAA have awarded grants to researchers at Orlando Health to help further examine the long-term effects of head injuries in concussion accidents in athletes.
High school and college athletes are being tested using the new blood to test to determine how serious their concussions are. According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, a second concussion soon after a first one does not have to be very strong for its effects to be deadly or permanently disabling.
A study published in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine confirmed that a particular biomarker could be used to tell whether a patient has a mild or severe concussion. Blood is drawn from patients within six hours after a head injury. Injured cells release glial fibrillary acidic protein, and this passes the blood-brain barrier, making it detectable via blood test. This test eliminates the need for head computed tomography.
This detection of the Glial fibrillary acidic proteins will help athletes who come in contact with other players and their heads to test the severity of the brain injury.
"When I was playing lacrosse in high school," said Andrew Kraus, a senior at Michigan State University. “I collided with another player with my head down and and I fell. I couldn't see for a few seconds and I could hear a ringing sound, I had to sit out the rest of the game after the trainer evaluated me and decided I probably had a concussion.”
Like Kraus, players do not take their first concussion as serious as they should take it. They continue to suffer hits to the head within a few short days of their first concussion.
"I just sat out one game and a few practices, maybe 4 days total," Kraus said.
Chico State senior Natalie Blackwood checks in with her doctor after any injury to her head no matter the symptoms.
"I went back home for a cheer practice -- I'm the flyer on our team -- and was dropped hard on the mat," Blackwood said. "I couldn't see for a couple of seconds nor could I hear. After this happened I was rushed straight to the hospital. My doctor recommended I stay away from cheer for at least a month to avoid a second hit."
The Brain Injury Association of America estimates that 2.4 million children and adults in the United States suffer some type of traumatic brain injury each year, and according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Symptoms of a concussion, or a mild to moderate traumatic brain injury, can be subtle and are often delayed in many cases by several days," said Dr. Linda Papa, an emergency medicine physician and researcher at Orlando Health. “We may not use these blood tests in a hundred percent of cases but probably in eighty percent of cases where there is a question mark, a blood test could definitely help,” Papa said.
