What will Jets need to see to clear Garrett Wilson from concussion protocol? | The Injury Report

This is the Injury Report presented by NYU Langone Health. Jets wide receiver Garrett Wilson is in concussion protocol after taking a helmet-to-helmet hit against the Raiders, leaving his availability against the Chiefs in question. So what goes into evaluating concussion and what must happen before a player can return? Here to walk us through it all. This week on Injury Report is Dr. Matthew Apicella, who is dual trained in emergency and sports medicine. You see him right there and he joins us now. How you doing, Dr. Apicella I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. Glad to have you on. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about concussions here. And we'll start with what's happening inside the helmet. What exactly happens to the brain during a concussion? And does a player have to lose consciousness in order to have one? Yeah. So it's a great question. Um, and you know, they definitely don't have to lose consciousness. Less than 10% of concussions have some level of loss of consciousness when they occur. Um, so really what happens is that the player or the athlete takes a hit. to the head or neck area and you get this rapid acceleration of the brain and it either can hit kind of the inside of your skull or just kind of move really quickly and this disrupts or stretches the neurons and leads to this kind of chemical and electrical imbalance within the brain that then has cascade effects that cause this kind of energy crisis or energy imbalance within the brain and then you start to have all the symptoms that kind of go along with the concussion after this. So that's kind of what we think is going on when this happens. There's been a tough it out mentality that's always existed around the sport of football. What are the risks of returning before concussion has resolved and what should be the message to athletes who might hesitate to report symptoms because they don't want to miss a game? What are the risks and what do you think athletes should know about why it's important to report those symptoms? For sure. And I always explain to athletes that this is one of those injuries that you can't just muscle through. You can't really tough it out. One, because if you're not ready to return to play and you're not reacting appropriately, you may put yourself at risk for a different type of injury or a worse type of injury. And then specifically in the concussion part of it, you can prolong your symptoms and make recovery down the line even worse. So, you know, again, I always tell them to kind of be honest about their symptoms and really report. When they're feeling better or if they start to notice anything.