AOSSM LogoApparently, Soccer is the hot favourite game around the world at present. When its sport times, sport related injuries can happen anytime in out door sports that require complete physical exertion. Cases of concussions in sports like Soccer are not very rare.

A new study by the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports medicine that was presented at its Annual Meeting shows that female soccer players recuperate from concussions differently as compared to the male soccer players. Also, the difference was noticed in the players who had history of concussions.

This study will help coaches and physicians to treat the patients differently by taking and individualistic approach.

“The results of this study suggest that physicians should not be taking a one-size-fits-all approach to treating concussions,” said co-author Alexis Chiang Colvin, MD, Sports Medicine Fellow for the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “Our study shows that patients with a history of a previous concussion perform worse than patients without a previous history on neurocognitive tests taken after they sustain a concussion. Furthermore, females perform worse than males on post-concussion testing, as well.”

The study was aimed at investigating the recovery patterns in case of concussions and since the game Soccer is famous around the world between both the sexes, researchers tried to examine soccer players.

“There’s a theory that males typically have a stronger neck and torso that can handle forces better,” said Dr. Colvin. “But when we accounted for Body Mass Index in this study, we still found a difference between males and females. Therefore, there are differences in recovery between genders that cannot simply be attributed to size difference. More studies are needed to determine the reason for differences in recovery between males and females.”

Researchers examined 234 soccer players which involved 61 percent of female players and 39 percent of males. The participants belonged to the age-group of 18 to 24 and had to undergo the neuropsychological tests that were conducted to calculate attention, memory, processing speed and reaction time after concussion. Concussion is condition of the brain that results from an injury like a blow to the head. It is characterised by temporary loss of regular functioning of the brain and may affect memory, judgment, reflexes, speech, balance and co-ordination.

The results of the tests were compared to determine the differences in performance between males, females and those who have suffered concussion in the past.

The inferences made after the test showed that the female player’s reaction time was worse than their male counterparts and they were more symptomatic than them. Also, there was slight trend that showed female players to be worse in verbal memory and processing speeds than male players. As far as the ones with concussion history are concerned, they performed poorly in the verbal memory testing after encountering yet another concussion.