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Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Friday, August 9, 2019
Routine hits playing football cause damage to the brain
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Free e-book: Concussions, CTE and Football
From the Introduction:
When You Watch Your Next Football Game...
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From high school to college to professional levels, football dominates American sports and exposes millions to head traumas on practically every play.
It is a paradox of wide proportions. From opening day in September to the Super Bowl in February, the National Football League (NFL) dominates American sports and wins television ratings far beyond any other program--sports or otherwise.
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Increasingly, though, discussions of football (and other sports) include the medical terms concussion and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a long-term degenerative and incurable brain disease. Although military personnel and others are vulnerable to the disease, the highest risk is among athletes involved in contact sports in which hits to the head are considered “part of the game.”
Ten years ago, few would have predicted that the movie “Concussion” starring Will Smith would be made. Fewer would have predicted that brain injuries would one day dominate the sports headlines. When former NFL star Junior Seau committed suicide in May 2012, the media focused almost entirely on whether the thousands of head blows he endured during his 19-year career as a middle linebacker were a contributing factor.
More than 3,000 former NFL players sued the league for allegedly misleading them about the risks of brain injury. The players and the league settled for more than $1 billion in damages. New policies and studies aimed at protecting the brains of athletes seem to be announced every week. But it’s not just professional athletes who are the focus of attention. No fewer than 40 states have passed laws requiring athletes in schools and recreational programs to schedule a doctor’s appointment when a concussion is suspected.
A progressive, degenerative brain disease, CTE can present itself in athletes and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma months, years, or even decades after injury. Memory loss, confusion, depression, aggression, impaired judgment or impulse control, and, eventually, progressive dementia may result.
With this increasing awareness about the dangers of concussion, parents face tough choices about which sports their children should be allowed to play. Some of the more
New rules have since been designed to lessen brain trauma; but with every new horror story that emerges on the sports pages, parents worry even more.
dangerous sports for the brain, such as football, soccer, ice hockey, and lacrosse, are also the most popular. Although everyone agrees that brain trauma may have lasting and debilitating effects, and science continues to make slow progress toward understanding the disease, we cannot yet entirely quantify those effects. As a result, parents and even medical professionals are left to search their hearts and scour Web sites for answers. But a decade’s worth of research has made one thing clear: We need to find better ways to protect the brains of athletes.
Difficult to Measure
Concussions suffer from a perception problem. On the surface, they might not seem to have a lasting, serious impact. (In fact, sports programs and commentators continue to celebrate the most impactful “hits,” using euphemisms such as “getting your bell rung.”) They are an invisible injury: There is no blood, there are no displaced bones, and the patient rarely complains. Even when an athlete is knocked unconscious and observers react with panic, the concern quickly fades. Ninety-nine percent of concussed athletes wake up in seconds or minutes and then seem fine. When symptoms persist beyond the day of injury, in the vast majority of cases they dissipate within a month. The injury seems as if it is gone forever, leaving no scars or overt indication that it ever happened.
Children at Risk
Most brain trauma in the industrialized world occurs in children playing sports. Since participation is voluntary, and the rules of recreational sports are malleable, it seems reasonable to make every effort to reform each individual sport....
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Playing football before age 12 could have long-term health effects
- September 19, 2017
- Playing American football before the age of 12 may have long-term consequences for players' mood and behavior, according to a study involving 214 professional and amateur football players. Source: BioMed Central.
Football players who started playing before age 12 had more than twice the odds for clinical impairment in executive function (including analyzing, planning, and organizing tasks), regulating their behavior, and apathy, compared to players who started playing at age 12 or later.
Credit: © cfarmer / Fotolia
Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine, USA found that football players who started playing before age 12 had more than twice the odds for clinical impairment in executive function (including analyzing, planning, and organizing tasks), regulating their behavior, and apathy, compared to players who started playing at age 12 or later. They also had more than three times the odds for depression. The effects appear to apply to players of all ages and levels of education, no matter how long they had played for (duration) and whether they were professional or amateur players (level of play).
Dr Robert Stern, the corresponding author of the study said: "Overall, our study provides further evidence that playing American football before age 12, and being hit in the head repeatedly through tackle football during a critical time of brain development, is associated with later-life problems with mood and behavior."
This is the first study to show a relationship between age of first exposure to football and clinical dysfunction in a sample that included both professionals and amateurs who played only through high school or college. Previous research had only examined small samples of professional football players.
In order to investigate age of first exposure to American football and possible associations with long-term clinical implications, the authors scored self-reported measures of executive function, depression, behavioral regulation, and apathy that had been obtained by online questionnaire from 214 former American football players, who were 51 years on average at the time of the study. Cognitive function was assessed using a standardized, objective test administered over the telephone. All players took part in the Longitudinal Examination to Gather Evidence of Neurodegenerative Disease (LEGEND) study which investigates the long- and short-term consequences of exposure to repeated head impacts in athletes.
The researchers were surprised to find no association between age of first exposure and cognitive function (such as reasoning, memory, and attention) but they note that this may have had to do with how they gathered their data.
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Dr Stern said: "Cognition was measured using a brief test that was administered over the telephone, rather than a more thorough, in-person neuropsychological examination, such as that used in previous research."
The authors also caution that the findings cannot be generalized beyond to female players or other contact sports. Because this is a cross-sectional observational study, it does not allow for conclusions about cause and effect.
Dr Stern said: "It is important to note that participation in youth sports can have many benefits, including the development of leadership skills, social skills, and work ethic, not to mention the tremendous health benefits. The goal is to make sure that children can take advantage of all of the benefits of sports participation without the risk of long-term brain injury or disease. More research on this topic is needed before any recommendations on policy or rule changes can be made."
Dr Stern added: "However, other research suggests that incurring repeated head impacts can lead to long-term consequences, and we should be doing what we can at all levels in all sports to minimize these repeated hits."
Playing American football before the age of 12 may have long-term consequences for players' mood and behavior, according to a study involving 214 professional and amateur football players, published in the open access journal Translational Psychiatry.
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Free e-book: Youth football practice drills and the brain
Exposure to head impacts in youth football practice drills
- Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group
- Researchers have examined differences in the number, location, and magnitude of head impacts sustained by young athletes during various youth football practice drills. Such information could lead to recommendations for football practices, including modification of some high-intensity drills in order to reduce players' exposure to head impacts and, consequently, lessen the risks of injury.
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- Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center examined differences in the number, location, and magnitude of head impacts sustained by young athletes during various youth football practice drills. Such information could lead to recommendations for football practices, including modification of some high-intensity drills in order to reduce players' exposure to head impacts and, consequently, lessen the risks of injury. Detailed information on the findings of this study can be found in the article, "Head impact exposure measured in a single youth football team during practice drills," by Mireille E. Kelley, MS (a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering at Wake Forest Baptist), et al., published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.Much has been written about concussions sustained by youths engaged in football. However, other less severe head impacts are frequently experienced by young athletes throughout the football season. And, important to note, studies have shown that far more head impacts occur during football practice drills than during games.Kelley and her colleagues collected biomechanical data and videos to evaluate the number, location, and magnitude of head impacts sustained by nine youths during football practice drills. All youths were members of the same team and were on average about 11 years of age. Inside each athlete's helmet was a Head Impact Telemetry (HIT) System™, which measures head acceleration. This apparatus was worn for all football practices over an entire season of play, including preseason, regular season, and playoff practice drills. Every time the HIT System™ recorded a head impact greater than 10g, data collection was triggered and biomechanical data were transmitted to a sideline base unit for later analysis. Videos were recorded to ensure that helmets were worn at the time of impact and to pair videos of the drills with associated biomechanical data collected by the HIT System™.There were eleven types of practice drills: dummy/sled tackling, install, special teams, multiplayer tackle, Oklahoma, one-on-one, open-field tackling, passing, position skill work, scrimmage, and tackling drill stations.Head impacts occurred most frequently during contact drills involving multiple players, and higher-magnitude head impacts took place during tackling drills. Not all drills were practiced in each session. Open field tackling, for example, was only practiced in five of the 30 practice sessions. Although this drill was associated with relatively few head impacts (compared with other drills), the impacts tended to be of high magnitude. The authors point out that the high magnitude of head impacts associated with open field tackling is most likely caused by the fact that athletes build up speed as they move toward each other across distances greater than 3 yards. In one-on-one tackling, on the other hand, youth athletes cover less ground before reaching each other. The authors suggest that this may have contributed to the fact that the magnitude of head impacts for one-on-one tackling was lower than those for open field tackling.The multiplayer tackle drill was associated with the highest rate of head impacts, but these impacts were relatively low-magnitude ones (compared with impacts in other tackling drills). The authors suggest that this may be due to the emphasis on blocking rather than tackling during this drill.In describing the study, lead investigator Jillian E. Urban, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Wake Forest Baptist, said, "This study, along with future research, will help inform relevant evidence-based recommendations for youth football leagues to reduce head impact exposure and ultimately improve the safety of sport for our young athletes."Story Source:Materials provided by Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group.
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Thursday, September 7, 2017
Mothers: Would you let your son play football?
Excerpted from Healing the Brain:
Concussions and CTE
Concussions and CTE
Introduction
When You Watch Your Next Football Game...
Free Stock Photo
From high school to college to professional levels, football dominates American sports and exposes millions to head traumas on practically every play.
It is a paradox of wide proportions. From opening day in September to the Super Bowl in February, the National Football League (NFL) dominates American sports and wins television ratings far beyond any other program--sports or otherwise.
Increasingly, though, discussions of football (and other sports) include the medical terms concussion and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a long-term degenerative and incurable brain disease. Although military personnel and others are vulnerable to the disease, the highest risk is among athletes involved in contact sports in which hits to the head are considered “part of the game.”
Ten years ago, few would have predicted that the movie “Concussion” starring Will Smith would be made. Fewer would have predicted that brain injuries would one day dominate the sports headlines. When former NFL star Junior Seau committed suicide in May 2012, the media focused almost entirely on whether the thousands of head blows he endured during his 19-year career as a middle linebacker were a contributing factor.
More than 3,000 former NFL players sued the league for allegedly misleading them about the risks of brain injury. The players and the league settled for more than $1 billion in damages. New policies and studies aimed at protecting the brains of athletes seem to be announced every week. But it’s not just professional athletes who are the focus of attention. No fewer than 40 states have passed laws requiring athletes in schools and recreational programs to schedule a doctor’s appointment when a concussion is suspected.
A progressive, degenerative brain disease, CTE can present itself in athletes and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma months, years, or even decades after injury. Memory loss, confusion, depression, aggression, impaired judgment or impulse control, and, eventually, progressive dementia may result.
...
Children at Risk
Most brain trauma in the industrialized world occurs in children playing sports. Since participation is voluntary, and the rules of recreational sports are malleable, it seems reasonable to make every effort to reform each individual sport, with the goal of reducing risk of concussions and CTE. As logical as that sounds, adoption of brain trauma limits and other protections for athletes has been remarkably slow. Based on what we know today, there are a number of steps we can take to lower the risk of concussion and CTE.
New rules in both these sports have since been designed to lessen brain trauma; but with every new horror story that emerges on the sports pages, parents worry even more. What sports should I allow my child to play? What power do I have to protect my child on the field? To evaluate the risk, simply compare how that sport is played at the youth versus adult level, and consider the safeguards professionals are provided. Football is a prime example since, amazingly, 6-year-olds play by essentially the same rules as professionals. Right now we have a healthy national discussion about whether the NFL is too dangerous for adults, yet we pay less attention to the risks of youth leagues, despite the fact that football is far more dangerous for kids.
We need to consider the way the human brain develops and recognize that children are at an anatomical disadvantage compared with NFL players. A child’s axons, which connect brain cells to one another, are not fully myelinated (in other words, insulated), and his or her brain cells are more sensitive to the neuron-damaging shock of concussions, making each impact and concussion potentially more damaging to the brain.
When asked about the future of the sport he loves and through which he supported his family, a recently retired coach from the University of Albany, NY, said “No doubt in ten years it will be a very different game, if it exists at all. And in this case parents have to make the decision to allow their child to play. To the great worry of the NFL, increasingly parents are saying no.”
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Table of Contents
Dedication…….....7
Introduction: When You Watch Your Next Football Game….…..8
- Nurturing Strength and Confidence……..…12
- Exploring the Brain in Words and Pictures…….....19
- Use It or Lose It: Maintaining Brain Health……..….35
- The Power of Emotions……...38
- Wounds that Time Alone Won’t Heal: The Biology of Stress……….41
- Substance Abuse: Saying No Is Very Hard to Do……...57
- More than Just the Blues: Depression Is a Real Illness……….86
- Teen Suicide: Death in Life’s Springtime……...108
- Concussions and CTE: Healing a Broken Brain……..114
- Minority Stress and LGBT/Q Health…………………..134
- The Great Brain Books……..137
Appendix I: A Glossary of Key Brain Science Terms…...149
Appendix II: Maps of the Brain…...168
Appendix III: Learn More About It: Resources on the Brain…...173
National Drug & Alcohol IQ Challenge…………… ….187
Saturday, February 4, 2017
CTE and real cost of football on Super Bowl Sunday
It's the biggest sports day of the year, Super Bowl Sunday, a festival of football. But a sport so celebrated is taking a toll on our youth and adults. Our book, Healing the Brain, gives a in-depth view of the science of concussions and CTE.
From KCCI.com
Another Iowa family is donating their son's brain in the name of CTE research, but they are doing so at the request of their son. Zac Easter's devotion to football started in third grade, one of those kids in the middle of the action hitting and getting hit.
"He's a young man who loved the sport, who like any other athlete didn't want to take himself out of a game -- unless somebody made him," said Brenda Easter, Zac's mother.
Zac played 10 years until he was forced to stop in the middle of his senior year at Indianola.
"He had three confirmed concussions and he had to quit," said Myles Easter, Zac's father.
During his final game, Zac was not backing down from an Ankeny lineman towering over him.
"I knew that last one was not good, at Ankeny, I could just see the look," said Myles Easter.
Zac's father was Indianola's defensive coach.
"I knew he was done. I knew that was it for football," said Myles Easer.
"'I'm good,' those were the words, 'I'm good to go,'," said Sue Wilson, Indianola athletic trainer of her conversation with Zac.
Wilson was on the sidelines in 2009 for each of Zac's concussions.
"Back then, they could return to the field 24 hours later -- sometimes they were back sooner than an ankle sprain," said Wilson.
In the fall of 2014, Zac complained of severe headaches, problems with balance and with his vision. His family remembers him commenting about memory loss problems -- having a hard time remembering things and some slurred speech.
It was a Des Moines doctor who first mentioned CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
"I remember looking at Zac and said 'What exactly is CTE' and he goes, 'It's like brain dementia mom,'," said Brenda Easter.
Several professional football players were among the first diagnosed with CTE after they died and the issue is the subject of the Hollywood movie "Concussion."
"I was in denial, you know we're tough guys in this family. We'll get through this you know heal up over time is what I thought," said Myles Easter.
Of course, mom went looking for help in research, and she discovered what her son already understood.
"He just looked at me and said mom, 'There's no hope for me. There are no treatment programs. I know more than most of the medical professionals I've talked to and there's no hope,'" said Brenda Easter.
Zac moved back home last fall as his condition got worse.
The family said it was very difficult to see a strong young man -- very intelligent -- really go downhill so quickly.
Zac knew CTE could only be diagnosed by direct tissue examination of the brain, after death.
"And he said to me, 'Mom, I want my brain donated to science,' and I said, 'Nope, someday Zac we'll do that but I don't think you're done with it yet so let me find the right help for us -- don't give up on me," said Brenda Easter.
Just after midnight on Dec. 19, Zac drove to Lake Ahquabi and shot himself. He left a note in his car apologizing to the first responders and called the sheriff's dispatch to tell them where he was.
"They heard the gunshot go off on the phone," said Myles Easter.
"We drove out there as fast as we could, and it was too late," said Brenda Easter.
Zac took care not to damage his brain preserving it for research. He left two notebooks in the family room including a journal that documented his daily battle with whatever had taken over his body, his thoughts and his life.
Mike Hadden is a professor in sports sciences at Simpson and just finished a sabbatical studying CTE.
"Through his journaling, we have so much material and information from this that it's almost as if, I mean, it's a firsthand experience and so we can tell that story," said Hadden.
Zac writes in detail about each concussion and other blows to the head his parents and coaches didn't know about.
"His buddies had to carry him off the field because he could hardly walk, he was that dazed but he wasn't going to tell anybody and his buddies were buddies so they didn't either," said Brenda Easter.
Concussion protocol has changed dramatically since Zac played his last game at Indianola six years ago. Wilson said these days any symptom, even a headache means the player is done for the game and won't come back until doctors clear them.
"I feel a little responsible because he was in our care. As an athletic trainer, our ultimate goal is to keep kids safe. That's why you go into athletic training," said Wilson.
In Zac's writings, he expresses his desire to tell young athletes it's OK to tell coaches if you're dizzy or have a headache, OK to take yourself off the field wanting to tell everyone that all those concussions changed him that helmets need to be safer that more research needs to be done on CTE.
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Thursday, January 5, 2017
Traumatic Brain Injury: Not Just Football Anymore
It's not just football anymore. Concussions and traumatic brain injury are being investigated and treated as such in victims of domestic violence. Read about this sad breakthrough in our new Healing the Brain book.
According to an article in Science Daily, physicians and researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute have identified a link between domestic violence and traumatic brain injury. The findings could have important implications in the treatment of domestic violence survivors, both in medical and social service communities. The research, led by Dr. Glynnis Zieman, was published in the July 2016 issue of the Journal of Neurotrauma.
"Head injuries are among the most common type suffered in domestic violence, which can lead to repetitive brain injuries that often have chronic, life-changing effects, much like what we see in athletes. We found that 88 percent of these victims suffered more than one head injury as a result of their abuse and 81 percent reported too many injuries to count," said Dr. Zieman.
Pixabay
Researchers are uncovering the link between domestic violence and TBI.
The research was conducted at Barrow Concussion and Brain Injury Center in Arizona, where a specialty program has been established to address traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the domestic violence survivor. The program is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation. Dr. Zieman and her team performed a retrospective chart review of more than one hundred patients seen through the program to obtain data for this research.
While concussions have been a significant topic in sports, Barrow has taken special interest in concussions and domestic violence. Barrow experts say that women who previously suffered silently are becoming more aware of the real issue of concussions from their abuse.
The Barrow program provides both medical care and social service assistance for homeless victims who have sustained a TBI as a result of domestic violence. It was created after Barrow social worker Ashley Bridwell and physicians identified a three-way link between homelessness, domestic violence and TBI. The medical team has found many victims are suffering from a full spectrum of side effects that can lead to the loss of a job, income, and eventually homelessness.
"This is the third chapter in the concussion story," says Dr. Zieman. "First it was veterans, then it evolved into professional athletes, and now we're identifying brain injuries in victims of domestic violence. And, unlike well-paid football players, these patients rarely have the support, money and other resources needed to get help."
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