Football Players' Concussion Symptoms and Time to Return to Play Vary by Age

Concussions in high school and college athletes have been studied extensively, but their incidence and characteristics in younger athletes are less understood. Researchers analyzed data from injury-reporting systems for 118 youth (age 5–14 years) football teams, 96 high school teams, and 34 college teams. Postconcussion symptoms and time until returning to play were reported by athletic trainers attending all practices and games from 2012 to 2014.

College athletes had the highest rate of concussions per 1000 athlete exposures (3.52 in games, 0.47 in practices), followed by youth (2.13, 0.53), and high school athletes (1.61, 0.47). High school athletes with concussions had the highest mean number of symptoms (5.60), similar to college athlete…