In the week following an on-field collision that sent her slamming head-first into the ground, Gator soccer player Sarah Ordaz was in a cognitive fog.

She couldn’t concentrate in class because of debilitating headaches and blurry vision, and her short-term memory became glitchy.

“I would tell my friends something, and then, like five minutes later, I would tell them the same thing,” she said. “They’d be, like, ‘Yeah you told us that already.’”

Ordaz, 19, is one of an estimated 3,750 college athletes who suffer a concussion in the United States every year. The injury is now one of the fastest growing in college sports, according to reports recently published in the Journal of Athletic Training.

The reports also show that sports are second only to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of brain injury among those aged 15 to 24—and while concussions are commonplace in football, they’re creeping into low-contact sports such as basketball and soccer, making up 6 percent of all college athletes’ injuries.

Sports hacks call them everything from “bell ringers” to “clock cleaners,” but a physician at SF State’s Student Health Services prefers to describe concussions as they really are.

“They’re a disruption of normal brain function due to a blow to the head,” said sports physician Dr. Sekou Ford, adding they usually happen after a knock to the cranium, but sometimes when “your brain suddenly stops while the rest of your body keeps going, essentially causing it to slam the inside of your skull.”

When that happens, all the brain’s neurons fire at once like a Fourth of July fireworks finale. The effect puts undue stress on the brain cells, and is comparable to having a seizure.

Ordaz picked up her concussion during practice last fall.

“The goalie went for the ball but grabbed my feet, too,” said Ordaz, a child and adolescent development major. “I kind of like flipped over her, and landed straight on my forehead.”

She then lost consciousness “for a few seconds.”

According to Ford, she’s in good company.

“I guess I see [concussions] with some regularity here at SF State,” Ford said. “I’d say maybe one per month—mostly in soccer, followed by basketball.”

Those Gator athletes might have experienced short-term symptoms such as brief unconsciousness, headaches, temporary amnesia—or in rare cases, seizures. But those who sustain multiple concussions are at risk of long-term effects, like permanent brain damage and depression.

Ordaz said there is little soccer players can do to avoid concussions, and Ford said the key is to recognize one when it happens—and to quickly act on it.

“It’s fairly easy to notice a severe concussion on a kid that should not continue playing,” Ford said.

SF State athletic trainer Dawn Heinrich, who has seen two soccer-related concussions since August, usually looks out for short-term memory loss and dilated pupils when she suspects one has occurred.

“There are things we ask them, like ‘Do you remember what you ate for breakfast?’ or ‘Do you know where you are?’” Heinrich said. “[Sometimes] they’re all jittery, and ... they have really wide eyes, like they’re trying to focus but they can’t. It’s pretty crazy.”

For Ordaz, there was no question she was dinged.

“I got up feeling all dizzy, and everything was spinning,” Ordaz said. “[Heinrich] said that my eyes were pointing in separate ways, so she pulled me aside and told me a sentence, and asked me to repeat it back—but I couldn’t remember what she’d just said.”

Ford then ran some tests.

“He was asking me questions, but [they] didn’t make sense,” Ordaz said.

Soccer player Dylan Glass, a sophomore history major who was the Gators’ leading goalscorer last season, suffered his second lifetime concussion after taking a knee to the head last fall. He didn’t experience any memory loss, just “major” headaches and exhaustion.

“It felt like someone had hit me in the head with a hammer,” said Glass, who missed a key off-season game against one of the nation’s top college teams, the University of San Francisco, because of the injury. “[I was] very tired and dizzy. I just didn’t want to do anything.”

Concussions abound in all levels of sport.

Last month doctors told Akana King, a highly recruited high school athlete in Marin County, that she could never play basketball again after she received her second concussion of the season, and her fourth of her career.

Meanwhile, San Joaquin County, Calif., medical examiner Dr. Bennet Omalu this month published his book detailing his research into NFL concussions, eerily subtitled, “Football dementia, depression, and death.”

Ford said most concussions are not that serious as the symptoms generally clear up in days, allowing athletes to return to “unrestricted play” within a week’s time.

But the longer the concussion lingers, the more prone the athlete is to having another following a less-severe blow to the head.

“The rare cases, when the symptoms go on longer than a week, are what we tend to worry about,” Ford said. “That’s why we have to watch them closely so they don’t get a repeated trauma to the head.”

SF State subscribes to an online brain monitoring and evaluation system called HeadMinder, which measures the neurological function of every college athlete before they compete in any varsity sport.

When a Gator suffers a concussion, Ford uses HeadMinder to carry out repeated tests until the athlete’s brain function returns to “baseline,” or where its neurological function was at before the injury. Only then can the athlete return to the field.

It took Ordaz’s brain “a few weeks” and six tests to return to baseline—a frustrating experience for a freshman fighting to win a place on the team.

Even now, although fully recovered, she sometimes experiences headaches when playing but said “they go away” eventually.

“I was scared to play again at first,” she said. “I was out for a while, but I finally passed my test and I’m able to play again.”

Think you had a concussion?

Look for these symptoms:
– Confusion and amnesia, especially difficulty remembering the incident that lead to the injury.
– Headache – Dizziness
– Ringing in the ears
– Nausea or vomiting
– Slurred speech

Some symptoms appear hours—or even days—after impact:
– Mood swings
– Sensitivity to light and noise
– Sleep disturbances

TREATMENT
The only effective treatment is rest. Take ibuprofen or acetaminophen (like Tylenol) for headaches, but not aspirin as this can increase the risk of bleeding.

Source: Mayoclinic.com