As the summer come to an end, contact games such as football and rugby come to the fore.

There are certain risks involved with these contact sports, including concussions and a recent study in the journal Pediatrics investigates how the location of impact could affect concussion severity.

The new study suggests concussions that arise from impacts to the top of the head are more likely to make young athletes lose consciousness.

Researchers used existing data to calculate the rates and circumstances of concussions that occurred during American Football games as a result of player-to-player collisions.

The team observed that almost half of concussions of this type (44.7%) occurred on the front of the head, while 22.3% occurred on the side of the head.

Based on where the impact occurred, the number and type of symptoms, symptom resolution time and length of time before returning to play did not vary significantly.

But the data revealed that more players whose concussions resulted from top-of-head impacts lost consciousness than those whose impacts were located elsewhere on the head.
The researchers say top-of-head injuries were more likely to occur when players had their heads down during impact.

Source: Pediatrics Journal