Down For The Count

By David Bjerklie

Fall is here, and so is football, and that means concussions--an estimated 300,000 sports-related head injuries each year. While most are mild and result in no lasting damage, the larger concern, according to an NCAA study of 3,000 football players in the current Journal of the American Medical Association, is when players return to the field too soon and sustain a second, more serious injury. For an athlete with a concussion, say experts, there seems to be a 7-to-10-day window of increased susceptibility for suffering another one. Their advice: Wait this one out on the bench. --D.B.