Concussions in Women Have Been Misdiagnosed for Years. And the Fallout Can Be Deadly.

In 2006, Daneen Brooks was heading to work when another car crashed into hers. The impact propelled her into the opposite lane of traffic as her head slammed against the dashboard. She hardly remembers the ambulance ride, and the ER was quick—no tests, just a scan of her neck. "They sent me home with instructions to rest and painkillers for my headache," she recalls. "It felt like they were just checking boxes to get me out of there." Five years later, she found out what had really happened: She'd suffered a life-altering concussion.

Male athletes, specifically football players, have almost exclusively dominated the national conversation around this type of traumatic brain injury (TBI) that can affect cognitive function and cause symptoms like headaches, light and noise sensitivities, and nausea. Concussions may have profound ripple effects, leading to things like chronic pain, neurodegenerative diseases, and mental health issues. And left unsaid in all the football talk is that recent evidence shows women are more likely than men to get concussions in the first place. They can also suffer the fallout in unique ways, with more severe symptoms and slower recoveries.

"Gender-based care is necessary," says Nathan Zasler, MD, CEO and medical director of the Concussion Care Centre of Virginia. "But there's barely any awareness in the medical field." This, despite the data and the surge of people seeking help in women-centered concussion communities on social media. It's a frustratingly familiar story to anyone who's come up against male-dominated medicine before. Women are largely underrepresented in concussion research. And when they actually are studied, the focus is often on female athletes.

That's important, of course, but nowhere near comprehensive because it ignores age plus all the other ways women get concussions, like car and other accidents, military service, and domestic violence (which saw an increase during the pandemic), says Katherine Snedaker, CEO and founder of Pink Concussions, a nonprofit that focuses on female brain injury. "Women are the invisible patients with this invisible injury."