Head, neck cooling device may reduce concussion symptoms in adolescent athletes
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Key takeaways:
- A head and neck cooling device may reduce symptom severity for adolescent athletes with sports-related concussions.
- The device reduced symptoms more effectively than standard post-concussion care.
Published results showed an investigational head and neck cooling device reduced symptom severity for adolescent athletes with a sports-related concussion compared with standard post-concussion care alone.
Matthew A. Smith, MS, PhD, from Akron Children’s Hospital and Northeast Ohio Medical University, and colleagues randomly assigned 167 adolescent athletes (mean age, 15.1 years) with a sports-related concussion between 2017 and 2021 to receive standard post-concussion care alone (n = 88) or in conjunction with a head and neck cooling device (n = 79; Pro2cool, TecTraum Inc.). The most common sports included soccer, football and basketball.
According to the study, the trial was conducted during a 28-day period. The primary outcome was Sports Concussion Assessment Tool 5 (SCAT5) symptom severity scores at six post-enrollment timepoints.
Compared with patients who were treated with standard post-concussion care alone, patients who were treated with the head and neck cooling device had a 14.4% greater reduction in SCAT5 scores at the initial post-treatment visit, a 25.5% greater reduction at 3 days and a 3.4% greater reduction at 10 days.
However, Smith and colleagues noted patients who were treated with the head and neck cooling device were 3.2 times more likely to experience an adverse event compared with patients who were treated with standard post-concussion care alone.
“This study provides promising evidence for the efficacy and relative safety of Pro2cool use in the management of sports-related concussions in pediatric and adolescent patients; however, further investigation is needed before any recommendation for clinical use can be made,” Smith and colleagues wrote in the study.
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