What You Need to Know About Concussion
Unfortunately, the magnitude of a concussion can be difficult to diagnose without overt symptoms. Traditional neurological and radiological procedures such as CT, MRI and EEG are helpful at discounting a more serious head injury. These scans, however, are not very useful at identifying the severity of a concussion. This issue is that concussions lead to metabolic changes in the brain rather than the type of structural damage that imaging tests can detect. If your doctor suspects that a concussion has occurred, a series of neurocognitive tests may be performed to establish a post-injury baseline for important factors such as vision, balance, memory and concentration. This baseline is then compared to future tests to determine the rate of recovery and identify if symptoms are worsening. Due to the potential risk of a future concussion, these neurocognitive tests are especially important to gauge the appropriate amount of time before an athlete can return to the sport.
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