Age and Gender Affect Sport-Related Concussion Symptoms and Outcomes

High school football players have made the news frequently in the past year regarding the unreasonably high rate of concussions.  Steps have been taken on both a government and school level to start improving how such injuries are evaluated.  However, girls have remained an under-served group when it comes to sport-related concussions.

Researchers at Michigan State University studied 296 athletes of different ages and genders over a two year period.  They measured the baseline neurocognitive performance of athletes and then repeated the same measurements on several days in the two weeks following the occurrence of a concussion.  They discovered that, on average, female athletes performed worse on visual memory tests and reported more symptoms as compared to their male counterparts in the two weeks post-concussion.  In addition, when comparing the effects of age on memory following the incidence of a concussion, high school athletes performed worse than college athletes in both visual and verbal memory.

The high incidence of sport-related concussions is of great concern over all ages and genders.  However, based on this research, perhaps it is time to take extra precaution when it comes to younger athletes and female athletes who are participating in contact sports.

 Read the abstract here.

Can Aerobic Training and Strength Training Complement Each Other?

The effect of concurrent training, which combines both strength and aerobic exercise, has been debated in the past.  A controversy exists as to whether the combination of the two forms of exercise in a training regimen is likely to enhance one’s overall increase in strength as compared to a regimen of only strength training.  It is an especially important issue for those hoping to maximize their performance.

A recent paper in the International Journal of Sport Medicine from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, described research on 44 women in 4 different exercise groups.  The first group combined strength running with running; the second combined strength training with interval running training; the third combined strength training with cycling; and the fourth group only performed strength training.  Each group trained for 11 weeks, twice a week.  The researchers found no significant difference between groups when comparing initial and final measurements of maximal strength in knee extension, bench press and leg press exercises, endurance in knee extension and bench press exercises, and isometric and isokinetic peak torque of knee extension.  The absence of significant difference in strength based on the presence of aerobic training suggests that there is no interference effect when adding in aerobic exercise to a strength training regimen.

This research suggests that,if you are trying to maximize your performance for an event or sport that focuses on strength, you will not detract from your training by supplementing your workouts with aerobic exercise.

Read the abstract of the paper here.

One in Four Women Runners are Running in Pain

When you are standing in line to start a race and wondering if you are the only one feeling musculoskeletal pain – even before the race  - rest assured that you are not!  Researchers from the São Paulo Running Injury Group in Brazil asked more than 10,000 runners who were about to run a 5k or a 10k race about the if they had any bone, joint, or muscle pain.  Runners in pain then reported the location, duration, and intensity of the pain together with some demographic information.

Although women generally ran fewer miles per week, they reported more pain than men. 20% of the 796 male respondents and 27% of the 253 female respondents had pain before running.  

So more than one in four women runners are in pain before they run.  This study suggests that we need to take a hard look at what motivates runners to compete despite existing pain and if such behaviors contribute to long recovery times and chronic injury patterns.

Read an abstract of the study here.

Articular Cartilage Injury after ACL Rupture is more Common in Men than Women

While ACL rupture is itself a significant and common athletic injury in women, it can be compounded by injury to the articular cartilage which has been shown to increase the risk of subsequent arthritis.

In a recent study published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine a group of researchers from the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Akershus University Hospital in Norway used a remarkable registry containing details of 15783 primary unilateral anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions (42% on women) performed in Sweden and Norway between 2005-2008.  This represents 97% and 90% of all primary ACL reconstructions performed in Norway and Sweden respectively.

The results showed that men were about 20% more likely to experience injury to articular cartilage than women.  In addition, increased time from injury to surgery and a history of prior knee surgery were also risk factors.

So this is one relatively bright spot is the otherwise high burden of knee injury that women athletes experience.

Read the abstract of the study here.

Vitamin D is important for fracture prevention in post-menopausal women

Many studies have demonstrated that Vitamin D plays a key role in bone health in women. But what about women who already have osteoporosis? Recently, a group of researchers at Shinshu University in Japan studied the

circulating form of vitamin D in the blood of 330 postmenopausal osteoporotic women who had no parathyroid disease (which itself elevates the risk of fracture). Their research, published in the  Journal of Orthopaedic Sciences, found that vitamin D insufficiency (less than 20 ng/mL) was associated with a number of markers of poor bone health and also with a history of vertebral fractures.

These results are further evidence of the importance for bone health of maintaining adequate levels of vitamin D during menopause in addition to other factors such as calcium supplementation, hormone replacement, and the use of anti-resorptive drugs.  A comprehensive guide to bone health and other issues for post-menopausal women can be found in the recommendations of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada here.

Read the abstract of the research paper here.

Head Impacts in Women Collegiate Ice Hockey Players

Historically, women hockey players have experienced higher rates of concussion than men.  A recent study from the Bioengineering Laboratory at Brown University  published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise used hockey helmets instrumented with shock sensing devices (accelerometers) to compare the severity of impacts that men and women collegiate players were subjected to during actual games. The results showed that although women hockey players received approximately the same number of hits as men, the severity of the impacts were significantly lower in women.  This was true for both linear and rotational accelerations. Because of the previous findings of higher concussion rates in women hockey players, these results suggest that the threshold for brain injury may be lower in women compared to men. 

 

Read the abstract of the study here

Women Masters Marathon Runners Getting Faster!

A new study from the University of Burgundy in France suggests that women marathon runners over 40 years old are improving at a faster rate than men.  The authors compared the improvements in finishing times in the New York City Marathon for the top 10 men and women at every age between 20 and 79 from 1980-2009. While performance in the Masters category (over 35) for both sexes improved, women older than 44 years old showed significant improvement while improvement in the men’s group was only apparent in those over 64 years old.  The authors also noted that the gap between men’s and women’s finishing times has remained relatively unchanged during the last decade and conclude that age-related declines in physiological function do not differ between male and female marathoners.  They also speculated that Masters runners in general have not yet reached their limits in marathon performance which seems a pretty safe statement given historical trends. 

Read an abstract of the article here.