NHL concussions down; games lost up
Posted Apr 18, 2011 3:38 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The number of concussions in the National Hockey League has levelled off, but the number of games lost due to the injury has increased.
That’s according to a just released report by the University of Calgary, the largest study ever conducted on the subject.
The report finds for every one-thousand player hours, 1.8 concussions occur in NHL play. But lead author Dr. Brian Benson says the amount of time lost to the injury continues to climb.
“There are several potential reasons for increased time loss,” Dr. Benson tells 660News. “Maybe the injury severity is actually increasing. Or physicians are being more conservative with their return to play management decisions.”
“The rate seemed to level off,” continues Dr. Benson. (It) “fluctuated a little bit from year to year, but” (was) “stable over the study period. But what we did find is, time lost of ten days seemed to show an increasing trend over the study period.” (It’s) “still in its infancy, the science of the concussion. There’s still a lot that we don’t know about this injury. That’s why it’s important to study this, so that we can base management recommendations on evidence and not haphazardly.”
Benson believes data since then might show evidence that greater awareness of the injury will see a further decrease in concussions, but the treatment period growing even further.
The study, which was done in cooperation with NHL, its physicians and Players Association, looked at 559 incidents between 1997 and 2004.
It is is being published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
