Since the early 2000s, research on concussions has improved significantly. Concussions are traumatic brain injuries that affect the brain function of an individual. It is estimated that millions of Americans experience concussions annually, with a survey conducted by the CDC in 2017 finding that 2.5 million students in high school had experienced concussions in 2016. Of this figure, which represents about 15% of all students in high school in the country, at least 40% of those who experienced concussions were girls.
While increasing awareness among the American public may have led to the greater numbers of teens reporting concussions, not much is known about these injuries. This is particularly true with regard to the differences between women and men. Various studies have suggested that girls and women may have a heightened risk of experiencing concussions and may also need more time to recover from these brain injuries.
These differences will be discussed at the International Conference on Concussion in Sport. Experts on these injuries hope that the conference will help come up with a consensus statement that may improve research on how concussions affect women.
Findings from an analysis published in the “British Journal of Sports Medicine” show that currently, most of the research done on concussions focuses on boys and men. For the analysis, the investigators examined research cited by influential organizations on concussions. This led them to find that most of the data focused on men, with a male-female ratio of 80.1% to 19.9%. The investigators also found that roughly 40% of the research cited did not include girls or women at all, which highlights how big the imbalance is.
This gender imbalance arises from when concussion studies began because the research was often on high-impact sports such as ice hockey and American football, which are usually played by men. Access to research may have also played a role, because advanced college programs and professional sports teams have medical personnel, which makes it easier to diagnose concussions among these players in comparison to in other populations.
Concussion specialist Dr. Christina Lin Master states that the gender balance has improved over the last 10 years as scientists have examined more diverse groups. Master adds that now that investigators know that women often report more symptoms of concussion than men following a head impact, all that’s left is research to find out why.
She hypothesizes that the differences may be biological, positing that men may have stronger neck muscles in comparison to women, among other hypotheses.
There’s still a lot to learn about concussion, and one would be surprised to learn that not a single drug is currently approved by the FDA as a treatment for concussion. A number of companies, including Odyssey Health Inc. (OTC: ODYY), are undertaking drug-development programs to fill this unmet need so that patients can receive the clinical help they need.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Odyssey Health Inc. (OTC: ODYY) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/ODYY
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