The Embodiment of Post-Concussion Syndrome: Reflexive Research, Acting Athletes, Managing Medical Professionals, and Moral Trepidation

A phenomenological investigation to explore the embodied experience of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) from the perspective of high-level concussed athletes and managing medical professionals. Semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted with six athletes and five medical professionals to provide a partial actors-first perspective of post-concussion syndrome (PCS), which has been lacking within both the medical and social science literature to date. Supplementing this will be a brief consideration of how the media has driven public discourse, instigating a moral trepidation crystallizing around the uncertainty of possible long-term health consequences of repeated mTBI. This moral trepidation is experienced most viscerally by the parents of Canadian athletes. Seeking to describe the embodied experience of others is partial, I hope to draw from my own experiences with mTBI as a means of providing an experiential bridge of understanding to an illness that is described by medical professionals as being especially ambiguous.