Sports-related traumatic brain injury
Rules exist within each sport to help prevent cerebral contusions and traumatic brain injuries. However, individual athletes are the best prevention against their own injuries. In a game, athletes notice when they have the symptoms of a cerebral contusion and should take themselves out of the game. It may be hard for medical personnel or coaches to notice when a player has a traumatic brain injury, so it is in the player’s best interest to be removed from play. In hockey, traumatic brain injuries constitute 10%-15% of all head injuries. With the high percent of injuries being traumatic, extensive design improvements have been made to helmets. These improvements reduce the risk of cerebral contusions by providing more padding around the skull and a chin strap that keeps the helmet snug. In baseball, major improvements to helmets have been made to protect batters from the impact a baseball can have when hitting their head. Helmets, before this major improvement, were designed to withstand a velocity of 70 mph from a pitch or foul ball. Since the company Rawlings’ new design, helmets can withstand a velocity of 100 mph and have further padding around the softer parts on the side of the skull.
Post-traumatic seizure
The most important factor in whether a person will develop early and late seizures is the extent of the damage to the brain. More severe brain injury also confers a risk for developing PTS for a longer time after the event. One study found that the probability that seizures will occur within 5 years of injury is in 0.5% of mild traumatic brain injuries (defined as no skull fracture and less than 30 minutes of post-traumatic amnesia, abbreviated PTA, or loss of consciousness, abbreviated LOC); 1.2% of moderate injuries (skull fracture or PTA or LOC lasting between 30 minutes and 24 hours); and 10.0% of severe injuries (cerebral contusion, intracranial hematoma, or LOC or PTA for over 24 hours). Another study found that the risk of seizures 5 years after TBI is 1.5% in mild (defined as PTA or LOC for less than 30 minutes), 2.9% in moderate (LOC lasting between 30 minutes and 1 day), and 17.2% in severe TBI (cerebral contusion, subdural hematoma, or LOC for over a day; image at right).