Brain Damage Blog » Concussion in high school sport http://www.tbilaw.com/blog Attorney Gordon Johnson Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:20:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 National Federation of High Schools Imposes Tougher Rule on Concussions http://www.tbilaw.com/blog/2010/02/national-federal-of-high-schools-imposes-tougher-rule-on-concussions.html http://www.tbilaw.com/blog/2010/02/national-federal-of-high-schools-imposes-tougher-rule-on-concussions.html#comments Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:50:00 +0000 Gordon Johnson http://www.tbilaw.com/blog/2010/02/national-federal-of-high-schools-imposes-tougher-rule-on-concussions.html The nation’s high schools are finally officially tightening rules regarding concussions and student athletes. Starting with this year’s football season, “any player who shows signs, symptoms or behaviors associated with a concussion must be removed from the game and shall not return to play until cleared by an appropriate health-care professional,” says a press release issued Tuesday by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/highschool/varsityletters/2010/02/federation_rules_get_tough_on_football_concussions.html

Under the old rules, officials were only directed to remove an athlete from play if “unconscious or apparently unconscious.”

The concussion symptoms that officials must now look for now not only include loss of consciousness but also “headache, dizziness, confusion or balance problems.”

The press release also quotes Dr. Michael Koester, chairman of the NFHS Sports Medicine Advisory Committee.

“Given that the vast majority of concussions do not include a loss of consciousness…the NFHS Sports Medicine Advisory Committee strongly believes that officials should be empowered to remove these athletes from play, thus protecting them from further injury,” Koester said. “Continued participation in any sport following a concussion can lead to worsening concussion symptoms, as well as increased risk for further injury to the brain and even death.”

The National Federation of State High School Associations’ Football Rules Committee approved the rule change relating to concussions in a meeting last month, and that change was later approved by the NFHS board.

]]> http://www.tbilaw.com/blog/2010/02/national-federal-of-high-schools-imposes-tougher-rule-on-concussions.html/feed 0 Good Year for Concussion Advocacy – Public Awareness is Growing Exponentially http://www.tbilaw.com/blog/2010/01/good-year-for-concussion-advocacy-public-awareness-is-growing-exponentially.html http://www.tbilaw.com/blog/2010/01/good-year-for-concussion-advocacy-public-awareness-is-growing-exponentially.html#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:37:00 +0000 Gordon Johnson http://www.tbilaw.com/blog/2010/01/good-year-for-concussion-advocacy-public-awareness-is-growing-exponentially.html
Yesterday Matthew Stanmyre of the Newark, New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger began one of the best treatments of concussion I have ever read, a piece on concussion in high school sports, “Kids and Concussions: The effects of head injuries in young athletes.” The article can be found at http://blog.nj.com/hssportsextra/2010/01/kids_and_concussions_-.html What makes Stanmyre’s piece so extraordinary is that he not only got the issues right, he found the right sources to quote and he made that story human with the stories of young athletes who had been impacted by concussion.

One of his sources, Micky Collins, M.D. is one of the top people in the field and may in fact be changing the dynamic of how the medical community diagnoses and treats concussion. Collins had this to say in the Star-Ledger piece:

“The morbidity of this injury is far greater than anyone ever realized,” says Micky Collins, one of the nation’s leading concussion doctors. “I never appreciated how many kids have problems with this until I started seeing 15 to 20 patients a day.”
The Star-Ledger piece brought the urgency of this issue out with this timeline:

Consider:

• Last year, Montclair High football player Ryne Dougherty died after sustaining his second brain injury in a month.

• Niki Popyer, a 16-year-old former basketball player from Marlboro, sustained 11 concussions over four years, becoming a national face of the dangers of concussion.

• Alexa McCormack, a former West Milford High cheerleader, still has migraine headaches and blurry vision after sustaining three concussions during competition in an 18-month span.

• Former La Salle University football player Preston Plevretes, a Marlboro native, needs 24-hour nursing care and can barely speak after sustaining two concussions in a month’s time four years ago.
And this all from the perspective of just the state of New Jersey. One of the encouraging aspects of what the Star-Ledger reports is that New Jersey has a far higher percentage of athletic trainers than the national average and that the use ImPACT testing (developed by Dr. Collins) is happening at a greater rate than nearly any other state, with 141 schools using the tool.

I am not completely surprised that New Jersey would be ahead of the curve on this issue. New Jersey has for a long time had one of the best state Brain Injury Associations and one of my best friends in the brain injury legal community, Attorney Bruce Stern of Princeton, has been pushing concussion awareness issues as long as I have.

Today’s second part of the Star-Ledger series focuses on concussions in cheerleaders. See http://blog.nj.com/hssportsextra/2010/01/kids_and_concussions_one_of_th.html

This story also comes at a time when concussion is in the news because of Congressional hearings about the potential permanent brain damage that might result. I will be commenting on those Congressional hearings at my Brain Damage Blog, http://waiting.com/blog]]> http://www.tbilaw.com/blog/2010/01/good-year-for-concussion-advocacy-public-awareness-is-growing-exponentially.html/feed 0