CONCUSSION EFFECTS MAY LAST; STUDY TELLS ABOUT POTENTIAL SPORTS DANGER.

Byline: Daily News Staff and Wire Services

On the third play of last Friday's scrimmage, Pierce College receiver Aaron Lewis went to catch a pass and was hit soundly in the mouth by a defensive back.

Dazed, Lewis couldn't remember his phone number. He went to a hospital, was diagnosed with a concussion and grew fearful his football career was over.

An unsettling thought crossed his mind: ``No wonder Muhammad Ali is (in his state).''

It was Lewis' first head injury. With proper rest and time away from contact, he will recover.

A study published today reports that if teen-agers receive a number of concussions while playing sports, it might harm their thinking abilities for years to come.

Nearly 63,000 high school athletes a year suffer mild concussions, researchers reported in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. Young athletes with learning disorders appear to suffer even worse long-term problems from multiple concussions.

Researchers suggest such injuries are more serious than some coaches and parents might think.

``This is a major public health issue that has been given short shrift,'' said Michael W. Collins, a neuropsychologist at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and leader of one of the studies. ``And this is information parents should know.''

Most people still believe a concussion means getting knocked out, he said. But a concussion is any alteration in mental function after a blow to the head. Signs or symptoms may be subtle - a headache, dizziness, difficulty with balance or memory, confusion or a personality change.

One of the studies did not explore the effects of concussions but only how often they occurred in football, wrestling, soccer, basketball, softball, baseball, field hockey and volleyball at 235 high schools nationwide from 1995-96 through 1997-98.

There were 1,219 concussions - 63 percent of them in football - and 99 students suffered two or more, said researchers led by John W. Powell, a professor of kinesiology and an athletic trainer at Michigan State University.

The researchers estimated more than 62,800 concussions occur among high school students nationwide annually in the sports they studied.

When he was a senior at Westlake High, Travis Campbell suffered three concussions in summer passing-league games. He said it felt like being car-sick.

``I only remember stuff that people told me,'' said Campbell, now at California State University, Northridge. ``My parents were scared, and I was scared. You can't remember everything. It's scary. . . . The only good thing about having a concussion is you don't remember anything, you don't remember the pain.''

It has long been known that multiple mild concussions are more likely than a single episode to lead to long-term problems, and Collins tried to measure the difference in his study.

His research involved 393 college football players and found that about one in three had suffered a concussion at some time in the past and one in five had suffered two or more.

Those who had suffered two or more were significantly more likely to report continuing problems with headaches, sleep and concentration, and they scored significantly worse on paper-and-pencil tests of the ability to learn words, to think quickly and to handle complex tasks. A complex task in the real world would be cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner, for example.

Players who had learning disorders - 13.5 percent of the sample - fared even worse if they had two or more concussions, suggesting that the disorders make the brain especially vulnerable to jarring injuries. About 12 percent of all collegians have learning disorders, research has shown.

``If they have a learning disability, if they have one concussion, you should be a lot more cautious in returning them to game conditions and practices after their first concussion,'' said an expert not involved in the studies, Jeffrey T. Barth, chief of medical psychology and neuropsychology at the University of Virginia.

Locally, Taft High officials have known for years to practice caution.

Joe Muhe, a certified athletic trainer with 10 years' experience said as soon as a football player gets a concussion, he needs to be evaluated by a doctor. There is no returning to the game or practice.

Muhe said he orders a player sidelined for a minimum of seven to 10 days after the symptoms have subsided.

``So in football, you're out a minimum of two weeks,'' Muhe said. ``If a guy gets a concussion and somebody doesn't know what he's doing, it could lead to possible death. A concussion means your brain has swelled, and if you insult that again or don't treat it, then the worst-case scenario is death. If a player has two concussions in one month, his season is over.''

Barth said the research on the prevalence of concussions among high school students confirms previous work but is by far the largest study, and it highlights a problem that has been relatively ignored over the years. Most emphasis on managing concussion has been at college and pro levels, he said.

Staff writers Lee Barnathan, Chris Branam and Gerry Gittelson contributed to this story.

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Associated Press