A study published recently in the American Journal of Sports Medicine looks at concussions in baseball players. It raises questions about whether athletes -- at all levels -- are truly recovered when Coach sends them back on the field.
The research measured professionals' ability to hit a baseball -- one of the most difficult skills in sports -- after returning from a concussion. Hitting requires great vision, reaction time and hand-eye coordination, and every at-bat can be measured in a number of ways.
When the researchers from the University of Rochester compared 66 batters who were cleared to resume play after a concussion with 68 who took similar time off for the birth of a child or a death, they found that the concussed group had much more trouble hitting. In the two weeks after re-taking the field, they had lower batting averages (.235 vs .266), on-base percentages (.294 vs .326), slugging percentages (.361 vs .423), and on-base plus slugging percentages (.650 vs .749).
The good news is that the gap between the two groups closed within four to six weeks after the athletes took time off, though the concussed players still showed slightly poorer performance.
Interestingly, hitters who suffered concussions struck out and walked at about the same rate as those who took time off, suggesting that they did not have trouble seeing the ball. Their timing was off.
"Our findings suggest that concussed baseball players who are cleared to return to play through traditional approaches may not have fully returned to baseline status before their return," the authors wrote. Under Major League Baseball policy, a club must certify that all of a player's concussion symptoms have disappeared and that his results on a standardized screening test have returned to pre-concussion levels.
"The more we look at it, the more we see that the brain takes a long time to heal," said Jeff Bazarian, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Rochester, who led the study. "The good news is it does heal."
Bazarian says hitting a baseball is so complex and difficult that hitting ability is a more sensitive indicator of problems than accepted screening tests.
"I think we need to know more about what we're doing when we clear people," Bazarian said. "They're clearly not recovered."
ActiveStyle on 04/20/2015