
Hannah Nash suffered a concussion in 2018 and experienced PPCS. Today, she attends the University of Washington.
On Dec. 26, 2018, 18-year-old Hannah Nash, an avid basketball player, was hit in the head while at basketball practice. She initially felt a sharp pain and her head felt foggy. She recalled leaving practice abruptly. The next day, she played in a game, but she didn’t feel like herself.
“I played terribly,” Nash said. “I was just off.”
She went to her pediatrician, and they treated her symptoms like a concussion. She was told to rest. On Jan. 3, 2018, she fainted in her kitchen and hit her head again.
Every year, an estimated 1.1 to 1.9 million youth suffer a sports-related concussion. Common post-concussion symptoms include headache, fatigue, irritability, dizziness and poor academic performance. Depression and anxiety are also commonly reported and have been shown to be associated with prolonged recovery from concussion. For most individuals, symptoms resolve within days or weeks of a concussion, but for youth like Nash, that isn’t always the case. For adolescents who experience persistent post-concussive symptoms (PPCS), the burden on their families, academic achievement and other areas of life can be enormous. Read full post »