I know that concussions can be serious, so I make sure that my children always wear helmets whenever they are riding their bikes or playing any other sports that may require protective headgear. However, a friend now tells me that helmets don’t necessarily protect against concussions. Is that true? Can you tell me more about concussions, and the best ways to reduce the risk of concussions in my children?
In recent years, there has been a huge increase in public awareness about the long-term health risks posed by concussions — particularly, multiple concussions sustained over time. When it comes to protecting your children from sustaining concussions, it’s good that you’re off to an early start.
A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury that is caused by a blow to the head or body, a fall, or another injury that jars or shakes the brain inside the skull. Symptoms of a concussion are often temporary, but they can last for hours, days, weeks, or even months. They may be mild, moderate, or severe and can include deficits in memory and cognition, issues with concentration, headaches, mood instability, and sleep disruption.
Over time, repeated concussions may increase a person’s risk for depression, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other conditions later in life.
When it comes to the value of a helmet in preventing concussions, your friend is partially correct. During impact, a helmet will lessen, but not fully eliminate, the risk of a concussion.
However, a helmet dramatically reduces the risk of serious head injuries or skull fractures. A well-fitting helmet does this by distributing impact force across a wide area of the head during a crash, instead of allowing that force to be concentrated in a small area on the skull. This is why football players can collide dozens of times per game and not fracture their skulls, while still unknowingly experiencing dozens of small concussions.
To reduce the risk of concussion, wearing a helmet is the first step — but not the last one. Children still need to learn to exercise caution and good judgment if and when they are interested in participating in any sport in which head trauma is a possible occurrence. The same is true when riding a bicycle or engaging in any other recreational activity that requires a helmet for safety. Your brain is fragile and, obviously, irreplaceable; to prevent concussions, caution is key.
