Concussion, in Soccer-playing Girls
Teenage girls are twice as susceptible to concussion, compared with boys.
The brain is a jelly
The brain is a jelly, with connecting nerves made of slightly stronger, but really fragile, jelly, running through it. Rapid jiggling causes stretching and potentially, tearing of the nerves every time the skull receives a shock. Therefore concussions are cumulative and repeated small injuries can add up to big problems.
A study, of 40,000 girls and 40,000 boys
According to a study dated 27 April 2021, Philippa Roxby, Health reporter, published in the Journal “Neurology”, girl footballers have double the concussion risk of boys. The study, of 40,000 female high school footballers and a similar number of male high school footballers in Michigan, over three years, found that there were more than 1,500 concussions in total, with around two-thirds occurring in girls. The risk of sports-related concussion in girls was 1.88 times higher than for boys.
In spite of the disparity, boys were 1.5 times more likely than girls to be removed from play on the same day, suggesting perhaps that the boys injuries seemed more severe. However girls who were concussed took, on average, two days longer to recover from injury and return to play, which suggests that the boys’ injuries were less.
Conclusion
Boys’ and girls’ concussive injuries differ.
Comment
This report is based on an excellent study and is credible, but it raises a question: What’s the difference between boys and girls?
A clue, perhaps, is to be found in the mechanism of concussion-causing injury: Interestingly, teenage boys were most often injured when colliding with another player, while girls were more likely to be concussed by head-contact with the ball, a goalpost or the turf.
