Adolescents with a sports-related concussion had worse initial impairments in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) than those who had a sports-related fracture, according to a study presented recently at the International Extreme Sports Medicine Congress.
“When we compared them to fracture patients, the adolescent concussion patients experienced greater impairments in cognitive, school, and overall quality of life, and the degree of impairment experienced by concussion patients is impacted by a bunch of clinical variables,” says Kelly Russell, PhD, said during the presentation of her study, “Youth Health-Related Quality of Life During Recovery from Sports-Related Concussion.”
“So, this gives physicians a good idea of who is potentially going to take longer to recover and who is going to have reduced quality of life,” she notes, in a media release from Healio.
In the study, Russell and colleagues compared the HRQoL among adolescent patients ranging in age from 13 and 18 years. Among them, 135 patients had sports-related concussions and 96 patients had sports-related fractures, which were diagnosed by their physicians within 30 days after injury. The HRQoL was based on physical, social, school and emotional QoL.
The team also collected results on a cognitive function scale every 1 week to 2 weeks.
According to Russell in the release, patients with sports-related concussions with a delayed recovery recovered after 51 days; those with a normal recovery did so in 17 days; and those with sports-related fractures recovered in at least 31 days.
Regarding initial QoL at their first appointment, patients who went on to have a delayed recovery had a HRQoL of 64 versus a score of 75 for patients with fractures. Regarding recovery, patients with concussions who had a delayed or normal recovery had a HRQoL of 95. Patients with a sports-related fracture had a HRQoL of 84.
Russell estimates that patients who had a concussion and had a normal recovery got better more quickly compared to those with fractures. Worse cognitive and school QoL was seen in patients with sports-related concussions versus sports-related fractures, the release continues.
When they compared the QoL measures in patients who had concussions with the control patients, they found that the physical, school, and overall quality of life measures were worse among that those with concussions.
Predictors for lower QoL included being female, having a higher initial post-concussion symptom scale score, and a history of previous concussions. Patients who said their school was helpful in their recovery process had better QoL. Patients who had delayed recovery had worse school QoL, the release notes.
[Source: Healio]
