Eric Lindros looked around the room and saw a lot more support for concussion research than he would have expected when he played hockey.
“I think if we were to attempt to do this 20 years ago, I’m not sure we would have so many people here,” the NHL Hockey Hall of Fame Honouree said Tuesday.
He was addressing the crowd at a discussion, Bruising Your Brain: What Science and Sport Say About Concussions.
At the event Dr. Roger Zemek, a pediatric emergency physician and scientist, introduced his study, known as the 5P study, which predicts post-concussion problems in children.
The goal of the 5 P study, Dr. Zemek said, is to predict how much a person is at risk from suffering from post-concussion symptoms.
These are tests that can be done right away at a clinic rather than a blood test , for example, that can take weeks to get back.
Among the interesting findings were “that teenagers were at higher risk than lower-age children, and that girls were at higher risk of having prolonged symptoms than compared to boys,” Dr. Zemek said.
Points can be assigned to these and other factors to help determine the severity of the post-concussion symptoms.
“There was a very strong correlation between the number of points they have and the eventual percentage who had persistent concussion symptoms,” Dr. Zemek said.