Recent statistics. Estimated 1.6 to 3.8 million sports and recreational related concussions occur yearly in the US. You can have an injury with a loss of consciousness or without a loss of consciousness. More people do not have a loss of consciousness in fact only an estimated 8 to 19 percent do lose consciousness.
So when do you know that you have a problem? When the child acts different emotionally. Anger attacks, more reactive to everything that is said, more sad, clearly not the same child. When math facts are too hard to memorize. When spelling words are not correctly recalled writing a sentence two weeks after the spelling test. When school becomes more frustrating. When there are more emotional reactions in school. When there are less friends. When the school calls you with problems. When reading gets harder. When tests are studied for and the information is not recalled when taking the test. The list is endless. Look for any kind of change and trust your gut.
What can be done? Get a neuropsychological evaluation. An evaluation of how the child is functioning using paper and pencil tests to measure the brain. The neuropsychologist and the neurologist form a team to diagnose the brain but the first step is neuropsychological testing.
The problem is not the concussion, the problem is lack of diagnosis.
There are free "Heads Up" tool kits for physicians, high school coaches and youth sports coaches:
www.cdc.gov/ncipc/tib/Physician_Tool_Kit
www.cdc.gov/ncipc/tbi/Coaches_Tool_Kit.htm
www.cdc.gov/ConcussioninYouthSports