The jump is a big one.
From 2007 to 2014, the number of concussions experienced by youth ages 6 to 24 jumped by 60%.
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center analyzed health records of more than 8.8 million members of a large private payer insurance group to gather their data.
Alan L. Zhang, M.D., assistant sports medicine professor in residence, said that his team’s study was the first to consider concussion diagnosis trends across such a wide age group.
“The rates at which concussions are rising may in part be due to the rise in youth sports participation and also better diagnostic skills/training for coaches and sports medicine professionals, ” Zhang said. “This trend is alarming however, and the youth population should definitely be prioritized for ongoing work in concussion diagnosis, education, treatment and prevention.”
The researchers found that young people between the ages of 15 to 19 were the most likely to have a concussion, followed by youth ages 10 to 14, 20 to 24, and then 5 to 9.
Doctors diagnosed 56% of the concussions in the emergency rooms while 29% were diagnosed in a physician’s office. The remainder was diagnosed in urgent care or inpatient settings.
Regardless of the sport they played, male patients were 1.5x more likely to have reported a concussion than were females.
