Bself,

Welcome to NeuroTalk. I am sorry to hear you and your son are going through this.

There are some important facts you both need to understand. If your son is playing at the college level, it indicates he has played long at hard prior to college. This means he has suffered many concussions and an untold number of sub-concussive impacts. Sub-concussive impacts are often worse than concussions since the player does not take any time off the playing or practice field. His determination to play again suggests he has likely hid prior concussions or dingers.

This all means his brain and future are at risk. Watch Head Games and do some research about sub-concussive impacts. Kevin Guskiewicz of UNC-Chapel Hill has done great research. Also, check out the Sports Legacy Institute. They have great information.

Your son's school needs to be very conservative with your son's future. I bet they cleared him to return to play after doing a Computerized Neurocognitive Test like ImPACT. The ImPACT protocol is dangerous in my opinion. It is best to be used to pull a player from the field but not good for sound Return to Play decisions. It is not a good indicator of the brain's tolerance for future impacts. Even the ImPACT designers and researchers agree with this fact.

Here in Boise State Bronco football country, concussions are regularly in the news. We even have a past player who had to leave the game due to concussions who is working with a local neurology department to get the message out about concussions.

I know you have a tough road ahead. Please keep in touch.

My best to you both.