Question:
My daughter has been riding for 11 years (since she was 8). In the pastyear she has received three head injuries 2 from falls while fox huntingand 1 from a kick while bandaging a leg. She has always used a helmet,if she had not, one of the falls would have killed her. Since the lastinjury, she has suffered increasing from head aches, and in fact has hadto drop out of college this semester because of them. The neurologistsays that they are probably due to the three concussions. Her MRI's areclear but the head aches continue.

My questions are:1 Can anyone tell me from their experience how long this will continue?2. Is she in danger of becoming punch drunk (Dementia pugilistica)?

Answer: First: I am not a doctor or particularly qualified to answer this question,except to repeat things I have read and what I know from experience.That said: From what I have read, a mild concussion takes about a year torecover from fully. Getting successive head injuries during the recovery periodis going to significantly retard recovery, and makes the injuries much worse.From my personal experience, I had a minor concussion & although nobody noticedanything wrong with me (as far as I know) it did take about a year for me tofeel really normal again. I had some minor trouble with word retrieval, whichwas very noticeable to me because I write for a living.I'm sure there is a head injury support group somewhere & probably out here iscyberspace. You might try finding that for more specific advice.

There is a recent report out on continuing cognitive problems due to repeatedhead injuries. It was done on soccer players, since they often have head-oncollisions, hit goal posts, etc. I won't go into detail, but it does saythat there are definitely long term problems associated with getting a headinjury and repeated blows compound the problem.