By Andrew Seaman
(Reuters Health) – – Professional baseball players may not be fully recovered when they return to play after a concussion, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that in the first weeks of play after time off for a concussion, major league players performed worse than players coming back from non-medical leaves of absence.
“One of the things we’re always trying to understand is what is the impact of concussion on anything someone does,” said Dr. Jeffrey Bazarian, the study’s senior author and a concussion expert at the University of Rochester in New York.
Unlike other sports and activities where concussions are common, Bazarian told Reuters Health in a phone interview that baseball provides researchers with a unique opportunity.
“The thing that’s nice about baseball is that there are so many statistics kept on each player,” he said, adding that they can see how a player performs before and after a leave of absence.
