Mom2Boys,

Your son who wants to play soccer next year can make a decision to not head the ball. There was research done back in the 1970's when I was in school that showed an average 9 point decrease in measured IQ for athletes who headed the ball in soccer. This did not even consider those soccer players who had suffered head to head concussions. A 9 point decrease in concussion is equal to 9%. That can make quite a difference in academic and career pursuits.

The other issue to consider is the personality changes and how that impacts career and contacts with authority. As my mom has said, After my bad concussion, I was not her sweet little boy anymore. When I finally heard that comment as an adult, I realized why I lost almost all of my friends and struggled to maintain friendships during my school years.

There have been multiple studies that show a high percentage (60% or more) of inmates show evidence of mTBI. The theory is this is a causative factor leading to the incarceration for many.

The local concussion specialist who treats many of the school teams would like to see heading the ball outlawed for minors and changes in the rules of the various sports to protect the heads of all minors. The judgement skills of minors leaves them at great risk of not reporting their concussions and at greater risk of long term consequences due to the immature status of their brains.

In some situations, the repeated concussions and sub-concussive impacts has been shown to interrupt the maturing of judgement skills to an adult level leaving the person with poor judgement skills as an adult. When the brain is busy trying to cope and recover from such trauma, e maturing and judgement skills that only develop during adolescence and up to the early 20's get suppressed and may never develop completely if at all.

I know a number of mTBI/PCS people who were injured during their early teens who, as adults, have the limited judgement skills comparable to a 12 or 13 year old. One has learned to rely on the assistance of others for many decisions after struggling to make sound decisions on his own. Another is riding a roller coaster through life. They have enough intelligence to be successful but just have poor decision making skills.

I have a few horror stories I could also relate but I think I have already said enough.

Regarding preventing head injuries, Ever since my problems at 15 years old, I have limited my risk in sports. This has not prevented the odd concussion by hitting my head on an overhead beam or other impacts that happened during non-risk activities. My position is to avoid the risky activities because you can't avoid those others and need to save any tolerance for those unexpected impacts. My neurologist believes there is a limit to how many impacts the brain can tolerate cumulatively. He was amazed at my high functioning compared to the serious dysfunction he could observe during functional brain imaging.

My best to you.