When is it safe for an athlete who suffers a concussion playing a sport to return to play?
A doctor at Albany Medical center, Hamish Kerr, was the lead author on a study published last month in the Sports Health Journal that found an algorithm that “may pose advantages over computerized neuropsychological testing” in best predicting when it is safe to return to play.

 “The matter of when an athlete is fully recovered from a concussion and can safely return to sports continues to be debated,” said Kerr in a release from Albany Med. “By using multiple variables, including a symptom score, analysis of an athlete’s balance on a special device and the amount of time since the injury, we were able to more accurately predict the time an athlete could return to competition without increased risk of sustaining additional injury.”

The five-year study enrolled 207 local athletes, aged 10 to 26, and sought to develop a better understanding of what differentiates an athlete who is ready to return to sports from one who is still recovering. Most of the athletes were local high school students; they were of different genders and played different sports.

The study shows that a weighted assessment using each of the variables can lead to a more accurate prediction of when to return to action, compared to an assessment of each variable independent of one another.

A total of 193 athletes returned to contact sports after a concussion at a mean 84.6 days, the study says; 12 of those athletes, or 6.2 percent, suffered another concussion within 12 months of returning to play. 

With this approach, the chance of re-injury in the 12 months following a concussion once the athlete had returned to contact sports of 6.2 percent, was lower than previous research, which estimated a re-injury rate between 9.6 percent and 21.8 percent.

Kerr, Sports Medicine Fellowship Program director and professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, collaborated with scientists from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who used “machine learning” in the analysis, as well as Balance Engineering, a Rochester-based firm.

“A safe return to the field of play following a sports-related concussion is a desired outcome shared by clinicians, student-athletes and their loved ones,” said Edward Philbin, chair of the Department of Medicine, in the Albany Med release. “This research brings us closer to that outcome by reviewing best practices for physicians to consider and follow when caring for an athlete recovering from this type of serious injury.”

— Melissa Hale-Spencer