- Title
- Incidence of Concussion and Time to Return-to-Play in the National Rugby League
- Creator
- Iverson, Grant L.; Gardner, Andrew J.
- Relation
- Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine Vol. 32, Issue 6, p. 595-599
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/jsm.0000000000000965
- Publisher
- Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- Objectives: To examine the rates of concussion and recovery time over the course of 2 seasons of the National Rugby League (NRL). Design: Descriptive cohort study. Setting: The NRL match play concussion injury surveillance system. Participants: All NRL players who participated in the 2017 and 2018 season. Main Outcome Measures: The (1) frequency of sideline injury surveillance identified head impact events in real-time during the games, (2) frequency of head injury assessments conducted by the medical staff, (3) frequency of medically diagnosed concussions, (4) number of days to medical clearance to return-to-play, and (5) number of games missed after concussion. Main Results: There were 472 head injury assessments conducted during the games and 149 medically diagnosed concussions over the course of 2 NRL seasons (1 concussion every 2.70 games). The median number of days until medical clearance was 6 (M = 6.85, SD = 8.03, interquartile range = 4-7; range = 0-79 days). There was a statistically significant difference in the number of days to be medically cleared to return to full contact or match play between seasons (U = 3517.00, P = 0.001), and the percentage of players medically cleared to return-to-play at 5 days after injury was 60.6% in 2017 and 27.6% in 2018. Most players (87.9%) did not miss a game after injury. Conclusions: There is approximately one concussion sustained for every 3 games in the NRL. Most players are medically cleared to return-to-play in 4 to 7 days.
- Subject
- rugby league; concussion; survielance; return to play
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1470274
- Identifier
- uon:48417
- Identifier
- ISSN:1050-642X
- Language
- eng
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