Even mild concussion may spark long-term impacts - with women worse off

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-05-28 04:00

New Zealand

Personality changes after a brain injury - Credit: URevolution Magazine - Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 - https://www.urevolution.com/en-nz/blogs/magazine/personality-changes-after-a-brain-injury

A NZ survey found that adults who had a mild concussion reported greater ongoing symptoms, depression, and effects on work capacity eight years after their traumatic brain injury, compared to similar adults that didn’t have one. Twice as many women met the criteria for Post-Concussion Syndrome - persisting symptoms - compared to the other studied groups. Women with repeated concussions were also impacted more when it came to higher anxiety and PTSD compared to men with repetitive concussions and women who had only one concussion. The authors say their study under-represented Māori, who face the highest risk of concussion, but still offers some new information to better understand the long-term consequences of mild concussion.

Media release

From:

Journal/
conference: PLOS ONE

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Waikato, AUT University, University of Auckland

Funder: NJS, BD, KJ, AT, SBC, VF WMRF #289. Waikato Medical Research Foundation. https://wmrf.org.nz/ VF, AT, SBC, NJS 09/063A. Health Research Council of New Zealand. https://www.hrc.govt.nz/grants-funding. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

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