Concussions and Epilepsy: Are they Connected?
Sports and epilepsy
Watching contact sports such as American football, rugby or boxing are fun pastimes over the weekend. But playing contact sports sometimes isn’t that fun. You get collisions, blows to almost everywhere in your body, despite having protective equipment. As a player, you shrug it off, get back on your feet and continue playing the game. But the big question is: Is there another game that’s going inside your brain cells, and are you losing that game?
We have heard of many athletes who got the payback of those physical blows years or maybe decades later, a good example being Muhammad Ali. But these days, a prominent case is that of the NFL player, Demaryius Thomas, who was found dead in his own home in the shower as a result of a seizure in December 2021. The scary thing about this, is that we don’t know exactly if his epileptic seizure was brought about due to head trauma on the football field or another reason like a heavy car crash that he experienced in 2019. What we do know is that traumatic brain injury is associated with epilepsy, with the correlation increasing depending on the degree of the injury such as bleeding and brain irritation.
What are epilepsy and concussions?
Most people think epilepsy and seizures are the same thing, but there is a distinction. A seizure is basically an increase in brain electrical activity leading to physical manifestations such as shaking and rigidity. Epilepsy is a disease that increases the chances of you getting a seizure and the number of seizures you get. It’s hypothesized to occur as a result of changes in the brain pathways and structure.
A concussion is basically a type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that causes the brain to rock back and forth inside your skull and is characterized by immediate or acute loss of consciousness and temporary loss of brain function. As sportsmen in contact sports, sometimes it is a miracle that you survive a game with no head contact! On a good day, you might get off with a slight headache, but on a really bad day, a blow can put you out of commission for the rest of the season. If you are a player playing contact sports, or are thinking of a career in a sport like American football, rugby or boxing, obviously you must be thinking now on how you will be affected and whether it will be worth it. This is especially relevant since it is estimated that 2 million people are affected by concussions annually in the United States.
What do we know regarding this matter?
Let’s look at some of the prevailing evidence regarding traumatic brain injury, concussions and the risk of epilepsy in later life. In 2021 a Danish study evaluated about 2.5 million people and followed them for about 40 years of their life. It turned out that people with mild TBI did have a two fold increase in risk of epilepsy even years after they experienced the trauma. The risk was higher with repeated concussions and increases with the severity, meaning the more worse your trauma is, the higher the chance you will experience frequent seizures.
But despite this Danish study, there are other literature which states the opposite saying that there is no significant correlation between epilepsy and prior concussion. If we were to take the summary of all the available studies, it would point out to the fact that there is a slight increase of risk, but no concrete or accepted statements are accepted as fact regarding this.
Can I do sports if I have epilepsy?
The million dollar question would be whether it would be safe to keep on playing sports if you have the higher risk of epilepsy stated above. Common sense would tell us that it is dangerous if a player gets a seizure in the middle of a game. Obviously, we can’t do some adventure sports such as mountain climbing because of the fatal risks, but experts have stated that with regard to field sports, it turns out that exercise and sports actually improves seizure control, mood and quality of life, so it is now recommended for people with epilepsy to participate in sports.
If you think that you have epilepsy already, or have a higher risk of getting epilepsy in the future, do not worry at all. Epileptics have made it to the top of the sports pyramid with NFL legends such as Alan Faneca, Justin Fields, Tiki Barber being diagnosed epileptics and still becoming legends in the sport. Even the legendary Florence Griffith-Joyner, who is the fastest woman in history, was an epileptic. Do not falter. Do not give up hope. There are plenty of medication and treatment to help you get over this hurdle. All you need to do is reach out, and help will be there.