concussions

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:07 pm

National Collegiate Athletic Association Student-Athlete Concussion Injury Litigation

http://www.collegeathleteconcussionsett ... ments.aspx

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 1:09 pm

Paige Decker--Senator Richard Blumenthal Urging NHL To Fund Concussion Research

"United States senator Richard Blumenthal is urging the National Hockey league to fund concussion research today.

Senator Blumenthal’s actions follow what he calls the league’s disregard for the health and safety of it’s players. The commissioner of the NHL last month denied scientific that suggests a link between concussions and brain diseases like Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. A devastating disease that has been linked to the deaths of six former NHL players.

Blumenthal will be joined by former Yale Hockey player Paige Decker whose career and life were sidelined by the long-term effects of a severe concussion."

Senator Richard Blumenthal Urging NHL To Fund Concussion Research
Read more: http://wtnh.com/2016/08/15/senator-rich ... -research/

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 12:42 pm

"Having a concussion is physically painful, but the mental anguish it causes creates an even more dangerous cycle. You don’t know how to articulate the pain you’re feeling and make people understand, and you also don’t want to let them down. It feels like you’re trapped in your own little bubble, and you don’t know how to deal with it."

We Need to Talk About Concussions, Right Now
Read more: http://www.theplayerstribune.com/we-nee ... right-now/

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 12:43 pm

Young athletes with concussion show less blood flow, smaller frontal lobes in brain study

Young athletes with concussion show less blood flow, smaller frontal lobes in brain study
Concussions could be linked to long-term physical changes in the brain, multi-sport Canadian study suggests
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/health/conc ... -1.3689146

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 12:47 pm

Sudden Death: The Mysterious Brain Injury Killing Young Athletes

"Our neurologist told us that's like saying, 'Let's go get in a car crash on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to prepare for the big car crash Friday.' Man, that just sunk in. It's taken an injury like this to my own son to just realize it, to understand it."

Sudden Death: The Mysterious Brain Injury Killing Young Athletes
Read more: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201 ... ll-players

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 12:50 pm

Concussions remain a concern in kids' sports
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016 ... /87716176/

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 12:52 pm

Kimberly Archie, brain injury survivor and mother of Paul Bright
"When I read depositions of coaches in sport injury lawsuits it never ceases to amaze me how few know anything about brain injury.

Oh but they did watch that 'concussion video' & received their certificate"

https://mobile.twitter.com/kimberlyarch ... 5258907649

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 12:54 pm

Esther Lovett shares how her concussion showed her who her closest friends were.

Lovett is a 17-year-old high school student who has suffered three diagnosed concussions and struggles with post-concussive syndrome (PCS).

Read her 4th entry in her PCS blog: http://concussionfoundation.org/story/p ... -redefined

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Fri Sep 09, 2016 2:30 pm

Could this lead to warning labels on hockey helmets?

"The lawsuit filed by Archie and Cornell asks for a judicial order imposing additional measures: warning labels on all helmets disclosing the risk of exposure to CTE and other neurological damage and disease, and the development of an actual helmet safety standard by NOCSAE specifically for minors. Taken together, the new requirements would essentially force players, parents, and the youth football industry to further acknowledge two disquieting things: that the sport can be harmful to the brain the way boxing is harmful to the brain, even for its youngest participants, and that those same participants are uniquely at risk."

New Pop Warner Lawsuit Raises Hard Questions About the Future of Youth Tackle Football
Read more:
https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/n ... e-football

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Fri Sep 09, 2016 2:33 pm

Karen Thatcher
"Former U.S. Olympic hockey player Karen Thatcher showed no fear pursuing pucks in the corners and in front of the nets. Months after retiring in the wake of a third concussion, however, the Ohio State student struggled with anxiety and depression. Routine household chores overwhelmed her to the point of tears.”

Women and Concussions: Female athletes suffer them a rate higher than men in like sports
Watch the video and read more at

http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/c ... 16&month=8

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Fri Sep 09, 2016 2:35 pm

over 600 stories new Paige Decker post

24. The Trouble with my Ears and Eyes — The Invisible Injury

Concussion Blog
24. The Trouble with my Ears and Eyes
http://www.theinvisibleinjury.net/blog/ ... s-and-eyes

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 9:04 pm

This app is available on apple products. Help recognize possible concussions can not be too careful.

Polytrauma/TBI System of Care

Concussion Coach Mobile App
Now Available at the Apple App Store, and coming soon to Google Play.
Concussion Coach is a mobile phone application for Veterans, Servicemembers, and others who have experienced a mild to moderate concussion. It provides portable tools to assess symptoms and to facilitate use of coping strategies.
Concussions often come with physical problems (such as headaches, balance problems, and dizziness), emotional challenges (such as getting angry more easily), and cognitive problems (such as difficulties with concentration and memory). The nature and range of symptoms can cause considerable distress and frustration, and training in different coping strategies is often necessary.
The features of Concussion Coach include:
• A self-assessment tool for measuring symptoms, with feedback and a graph for tracking symptoms over time
• Symptom relief tools and relaxation exercises for managing problems associated with concussion
• Planning tools to build resilience
• Educational materials about concussion and options for treatment by brain injury professionals
• Immediate access to crisis resources, personal support contacts, or professional healthcare resources
Concussion Coach is intended to support treatment with a healthcare professional by providing portable, convenient tools for the user to assess symptoms and cope with concussion-related problems. The app can also be used on its own, but is not intended to replace professional diagnosis, medical treatment, or rehabilitation therapies for those who need them.
Additonal Resouces
• Concussion Coach: Patient Information
• Concussion Coach: Provider Information
Concussion Coach was collaboratively developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Rehabilitation and Prosthetic Services and the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the Department of Defense National Center for Telehealth and Technology.
Concussion Coach is available for mobile Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, and IPod Touch) from the App Store.*
*Links provided below will take you outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) website. VA does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of the linked websites
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greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:14 pm

"Young teens who play hockey may feel pressure from their teammates, parents, and coaches to deny their concussion symptoms, putting them at serious risk for re-injury, according to a recent study."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/08/0 ... sions.html

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:16 pm

Concussion Diagnoses in Teens Hit a Record High
http://time.com/4508428/concussion-brai ... sis-rates/

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:19 pm

Paige Decker

Post 25: Running And Clare.
http://www.theinvisibleinjury.net/blog/ ... -and-clare

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:21 pm

"We need to do something about hockey and how we're letting young kids and teenagers play hockey."

Sports-related brain injuries among children on the rise
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/calg ... -1.3696386

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 1:23 pm

Athletes are keeping their distance from a genetic test for concussion risks
Read more: https://www.statnews.com/2016/08/15/con ... etic-test/

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:08 am

Long-term risks of childhood head injury may include winding up on welfare and premature death - LA Times

"With freewheeling summer months behind children and school and organized sports just ahead, new research offers some sobering news about the potential for long-term cost when a child’s brain is hurt.

In a study that tracked the life trajectories of more than a million Swedes, young people who sustained a brain injury — including a concussion — before the age of 25 were more likely to have a tougher, and shorter, life than were their uninjured siblings.
Compared to a broad population of their unhurt peers, young people who were treated in the hospital for a single traumatic brain injury before the age of 25 were nearly twice as likely, by their mid-30s or so, to be hospitalized for a psychiatric illness. They were 76% more likely to be unable to work and require disability benefits. And they were 72% more likely to die before reaching the age of 36.

In a bid to ensure that those starkly different outcomes weren’t the product of differing socioeconomic circumstances or family situations, the researchers also compared the outcomes of individuals who sustained a brain injury before age 25 directly with those of a sibling who did not.

That direct comparison only marginally diluted the divergent outcomes of the brain-injured and those who were not. Compared to his or her unharmed sibling, an individual who had at least one brain injury before age 25 was 57% more likely to have an in-patient psychiatric hospitalization, 49% more likely to receive disability benefits, and 40% more likely to die by his or her mid-30s.

Failing to complete high school and receiving welfare payments were also more common among those with an early brain injury, even after family circumstances were taken into account.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal PLoS Medicine, comes against the backdrop of growing concern about youth brain injuries, particularly those related to organized sports. In 2009, nearly a quarter-million U.S. children (age 19 and under) were diagnosed with and treated in U.S. hospitals for sports- and recreation-related injuries, a 57% rise over an eight-year period.

In a population of 1,143,470 youngsters born between 1973 and 1985, the new study identified 104,290 Swedes who were diagnosed and treated in a hospital for traumatic brain injury before the age of 25. While the severity of those injuries varied, 77.4% were diagnosed as mild TBI — more typically called concussion.

To be sure, the vast majority of the young Swedes in the study — including the 9.1% who were treated in the hospital for a brain injury while young — turned out just fine. In both groups, it was rare to develop serious psychiatric illness or require disability payments by the age of 41, or to die before the age of 36. But among those who had sustained a significant blow to the head, such poor adult outcomes were notably less rare.

Statistically, having such a low rate of poor outcomes can magnify small differences between two groups. When the “base number” of those who die early or experience hardships is tiny, even a numerically small increase in such people can appear as a stark difference.

But it is a difference, and the design of the new research suggests that brain trauma likely contributed to an increased risk of hardship. Moreover, these differences were evident even with the study’s relatively short follow-up period (data collection ended in 2014, when the youngest in the cohort would only have reached 29). The data suggest that as this group of Swedes ages, divergence between the two groups might widen.

Not surprisingly, the worse the youthful brain trauma, the greater was the likelihood of a poorer life course for young Swedes who participated in the study.

But recurrent brain trauma also worsened life prospects. Among those who went to a hospital more than once for a brain injury before the age of 25, the likelihood of ending up on disability in early adulthood was more than two and a half times greater than for the uninjured. One in 11 of those who sustained more than one traumatic brain injury before the age of 25 went on to be considered incapable of work, and thus eligible for disability payments.

In the United States, similar levels of TBI-related disability would exact a tremendous price, the authors reckoned: If TBI affected similar numbers of Americans, keeping them out of the labor force and requiring the payment of disability benefits, the cost over 30 years would be $1.1 trillion, they estimated.

Finally, the authors of the new study found that the age at which a person sustained his or her first brain injury mattered. Those injured later in adolescence and young adulthood fared more poorly than those hurt early, suggesting that a child’s brain may be more resilient in the face of injury than that of a young adult.

In an editorial published alongside the new study, two Canadian injury-prevention specialists, Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier and Sheharyar Raza, cautioned that when as many as two or three decades separate an injury from a measured “outcome,” it’s not easy to draw a causal line from one to another.

But, they added, “these data comprise the strongest available long-term analysis of concussions in youths, since a randomized trial is unethical and animal experiments cannot examine psychosocial outcomes.”

All of this bespeaks the importance of preventing brain trauma in young people, said the new study’s authors. When 9% of a cohort is experiencing brain trauma at some point in their youth, they wrote, “basic strategies” — seatbelt and helmet use, better protective gear in athletics, less reckless behavior — “need more attention.”

Long-term risks of childhood head injury may include winding up on welfare and premature death
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen ... story.html

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:12 am

Despite billions spent on treatments, concussions still a puzzle

“No physician should tell a parent that it is safe for your children to receive repeated blows to the head because we can treat them,” said Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist and chief medical examiner at the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s office in California. “That has no reasonable scientific basis. It is wrong to state that concussions can be treated and cured.”

Despite billions spent on treatments, concussions still a puzzle
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/news/health ... #pq=T7Srv5

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:14 am

Kristin Della Rovere

"They say they’re part of the game. But that doesn’t make it any easier to take when a hockey player sustains an injury.

Kristin Della Rovere knows that all too well. The 5-foot-8, 150-pound forward – who has been skating in Calgary this week for Canada’s National Women’s Under-18 Team summer showcase – has suffered a few setbacks in her hockey career.

Last season, she separated a shoulder and suffered a concussion on the ice. A few years back, it was a knee injury (torn meniscus) that set her back. But Della Rovere thinks each of her comebacks – the early disappointment, then the rehab, and finally the return to game action – have made her a stronger player."
Della Rovere returns stronger
Read more: http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/news ... 09cbf2ac5e

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:17 am

My Concussion Almost Made Me Take My Own Life

"It was like my body and my brain were unleashing every negative and harmful thought that could ever pass through someone’s mind."

My Concussion Almost Made Me Take My Own Life
Read more: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57a38 ... 6cb7e1aa25

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:18 am

What a concussion looks like in the brain - CNN.com

"I think what was striking to us was within the first four to five hours, you see no difference at all. The cells look healthy, and you think everything is OK," Franck said.
"Then, about by five to six hours, you see that the structure is changing, and then it starts to change rapidly and degenerate, and it's dead within a few hours. That was certainly surprising to us," he added. "It gives us a starting point to understand how much time we have to therapeutically intervene."
What a concussion looks like in the brain
Watch the video and read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/02/health/co ... lls-video/

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 1:19 pm

Lasting brain changes seen in college athletes after concussion

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/07/30/l ... /21441653/

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 1:21 pm

Who is treated most often in the ER for TBI?

"Kids under the age of 15 visit the emergency room for traumatic brain injury more often than any other age group, according to new data out from the CDC this morning. It’s the first national survey of its kind on how often patients present with TBI in ERs and hospitals in the US. The most common cause of brain injury: Falls. About 17 percent of people who presented in the ER with TBI had experienced an accidental strike or hit from another person or object — like what you’d see in some sports — making it the second most common cause of TBI that brings people to the ER."

Read more: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr097.pdf

greybeard58 · Post by **greybeard58** » Sat Oct 22, 2016 1:23 pm

Playing with sports concussion doubles recovery time: Study

"Continuing to play despite a concussion doubles recovery time for teen athletes and leads to worse short-term mental function than in those immediately removed from action, a study found.

It's billed as the first to compare recovery outcomes for athletes removed from a game or practice compared with those who aren't. The study was small, involving 69 teens treated at a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center concussion clinic, but the results bolster evidence supporting the growing number of return-to-play laws and policies nationwide

The study was published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

KEEPING SCORE

The study involved athletes aged 15 on average from several sports, including football, soccer, ice hockey and basketball who had concussions during a game or practice. Half continued to play and took 44 days on average to recover from symptoms, versus 22 days in those who were immediately sidelined.

Sidelined players reported symptoms immediately, including dizziness, headaches, mental fogginess and fatigue, and were diagnosed with concussions by trainers or team physicians. The others, who continued playing for 19 minutes on average, delayed reporting symptoms and were diagnosed later.

Those who continued to play had worse scores on mental function tests performed eight days after the concussion and 30 days after the concussion. Medical records showed mental function had been similar in all players before their concussions.

RISKY RETURNS

Return-to-play policies are widespread, especially in youth athletics, and they typically recommend sidelining players after a suspected concussion until symptoms resolve. One of the main reasons is to prevent a rare condition called second-impact syndrome — potentially fatal brain swelling or bleeding that can occur when a player still recovering from a concussion gets hit again in the head.

The study results show that a prolonged recovery is another important risk from returning to play too soon — one that "no one had really calculated" until now, said Dr. Allen Sills, a Vanderbilt University neurosurgeon. He was not involved in the research.

Playing with sports concussion doubles recovery time: Study
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/30a89efc ... time-study

HighSchoolHockeyForums.com

concussions

Student-Athlete Concussion Injury Litigation

Paige Decker--Senator Richard Blumenthal

We Need to Talk About Concussions, Right Now | The Players'

Concussions remain a concern in kids' sports

Concussion Save Your Brain

Post-Concussion: Friendship redefined

Helmet warnings?

Karen Thatcher's 3rd concussion -Tonight's Columbus Dispatch

over 600 stories new Paige Decker post

Concussion app

Paige Decker #25

Long-term risks of childhood head injury

What a concussion looks like in the brain - CNN.com