Run, Sam. Run!

This week over 2 million viewers watched Sam’s impressive speed and versatility on YouTube. Sam Gordon is a girl playing in an all-boys tackle football league in Utah.  Sam finished the 2012 season with a stat line that would make any parent and coach proud. According to the video, she scored 35 touchdowns on 232 carries, totaling 1,911 yards and averaging 8.2 yards per carry. And just for the fun of it, she also had 65 tackles.

It is hard not to watch this video and be wowed, but in this era of concerns about concussions, on all levels of football, this video raises some concerns.  The last minute of the video shows clips highlighting the 9 year old girl “taking a hit”.  Some of them are quite jarring. Gordon is not even 60 pounds, and there’s a kid on her team who weighs more than 150 – his nickname is Tank.

In his new book, Concussions and Our Kids: America’s Leading Expert On How To Keep Sports Safe And Protect Young Athletes, Dr. Robert Cantu – a clinical professor of neurosurgery at the Boston University School of Medicine — proposes that children should not play tackle football until they are 14 years old. The better game for children under 14 is flag football — in which kids grab flags rather than each other to stop the ball carrier.

Our message to Sam is simple: run, Sam. Run. Run so you can avoid the hits!

What Can We Learn From Dale Earnhardt Jr’s Experience With Concussions?

Dale Earnhardt returned to his race car last weekend after spending several weeks recovering from two traumatic brain injuries. He has been very open about his experiences with them and because of that we can take away several key points…..

1. Every Concussion is Different!

“The two concussions were completely different as far as where my brain was injured,” he said. “The one at Talladega mixed up a lot of anxiety and emotional stuff. The symptoms were more anxiety-driven. If I got into a busy situation, I’d get a lot of anxiety.”

2. Healing from a concussion is hard!

“I was just really frustrated and having a lot of anxiety of, ‘Man, how long is this going to last? Is this ever going to be right again? I had no answers,” he said. “These guys are professionals, and I asked everything I wanted to know, and we went through all these drills and exercises, and they ran me ragged, and it was a fun day.

3. Professionals help with the healing!

“I felt I understood what I was dealing with and the process was and felt a lot better. If I ever got any doubts, I’d call Micky up and we’d talk about it for an hour, and that was the best therapy was understanding what was going on. The regular symptoms of being foggy and having headaches, those were prevalent in first concussion, not so much in (the second) one.

4. Concussions need to be taken seriously!

“It changed the way I feel about it to where if I know I’ve suffered another concussion or if I have symptoms after an accident, I’m definitely going to be a lot more responsible about it,” Earnhardt said before practicing his No. 88 Chevrolet at Martinsville Speedway. “I can understand peoples’ opinions that they would try to push through it or they would ignore it to stay in the car because I did the same thing.

“Some concussions are really bad, and I don’t care how tough you think you are. When your mind’s not working the way it’s supposed to, it scares the (crap) out of you. You’re not going to think about race cars, about trophies, about your job. You’re going to think about what I have to do to get my brain working the way it was before. That’s going to jump right to the top of the priority list. I definitely take it more seriously now after everything I’ve learned.

You can find the full article about Earnhardt’s concussion experience here:

http://www.indystar.com/usatoday/article/1660409&usatref=sportsmod?odyssey=mod|newswell|featuredtext|Indianapolis%20Sports|p

Helping Our Athlete’s Make the Right Decision to Sit It Out!

There is no doubt about it whether it is football, soccer, wrestling, cheerleading, tennis or race cars, athletes love their sport. Therefore, the last thing they want to do is sit out of a game, match, competition, or race.  It is a hard but necessary step in recovering from a concussion and preventing second-impact syndrome.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is learning this first hand. In late August he had his 1st concussion from a crash on a raceway in Kansas. He thought he was okay. He felt good, but on October 7th, he sustained another concussion from another, less severe crash. His symptoms returned. He saw his doctor for a headache that would not go away. Dr. Perry made the right decision and would not allow him to race last weekend or in the race this weekend either. Perry wanted Earnhardt, Jr. to be evaluted by professionals, and Earnhardt, Jr. is lucky to have such a proactive team. They spent Tuesday at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Sports Medicine Concussion Program consulting with Dr. Micky Collins, a concussion specialist, formulating a return to play that included ImPACT testing before returning to the raceway.

 

Earnhardt talks about needing someone else (his doctors) to make the decision for him not to race because the love of racing would keep him behind the wheel even though he knows that concussions are serious.  Our athletes are no different. As parents and coaches, we owe it to our athletes to be that “voice of reason” when we suspect a concussion. From the moment we even think our athlete has sustained a concussion, they must SIT IT OUT!  Even though it is hard, we must be proactive in protecting our brain…we only have one for life.

The “Mild” Concussion Misnomer

On Sunday, Washington Redskins quarterback, Robert Griffin, III was knocked out. According to his coach, Mike Shanahan, he received a mild concussion. When asked about RGIII, Shanahan said the following – “He wasn’t sure what quarter it was in the third quarter. So at that time, when he wasn’t really sure what the score was, what the quarter was, we knew he had a mild concussion — at least according to the doctors,”

 

This leads us to the question – is it possible to get a “mild” concussion?

And the resounding answer is NO!

According to the CDC a concussion is a brain injury, and ALL are serious.

When talking about concussions, the word mild can be used to describe the symptoms. Symptoms can be mild to severe.  You will also hear the word mild to describe the type of brain injury. A concussion is a mild traumatic brain injury, but do not confuse this with having a “mild” concussion. Again all concussions are serious and need to be treated that way.

‘Head Games’ Documentary Takes Detailed Look at Sports Concussions

A new documentary is being released nationwide today that could launch the concussion issue into the stratosphere. Head Games, from producer Steve James (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters) and producer Bruce Sheridan, takes an in-depth look at the devastating and long-term effects of concussions in all sports.

As a feature-length film, Head Games has time to venture farther into the topic of concussion than most websites, articles or public service announcements. The trailer features compelling scenes about what professional and young athletes are willing to risk to play the game, and the consequences of their decisions.

The movie is heavily centered on the story of Harvard-educated former professional wrestler Christopher Nowinski, who, when diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome, began a quest to better understand the condition. After a visit with renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Robert Cantu, Nowinski began to learn the medical reasoning behind his traumatic brain injury.

Nowinski co-founded the Sports Legacy Institute with Dr. Cantu and, in addition to serving as SLI’s executive director, is co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (BU CSTE) at Boston University School of Medicine.

Head Games calls concussions “the public health issue of our time” — a statement that’s truly more fact than opinion. Like the crises of seatbelts and smoking in years past, and their subsequent legislation, traumatic brain injuries have been called an “epidemic” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and dozens of states have related laws to protect children. Consequently, while this film is one of the first documentaries to seriously examine the issue of concussions, it will hardly be the last.

Visit the official Head Games website for more information, including a list of theaters and On Demand providers.

White Sox’s Konerko Felt Helpless & Depressed After Concussion

Last month, Chicago White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko suffered a concussion after being struck in the right temple by Kansas City Royals outfielder Jarrod Dyson. After a gradual return to play, which included working out a little more than a week after the concussion, Konerko is now back on the team in full force.

What’s refreshing about Konerko, aside from the fact he took his concussion seriously enough to stay out of the game until he healed, is his honesty about the alarming effects of concussion.

In a video interview with Comcast Sportsnet, Konerko described feeling helpless, depressed, unmotivated and lethargic immediately after his brain injury.

“You just feel like a different human being. You just feel like out of the world. It’s just a weird feeling,” said Konerko, who took the ImPACT test after his injury to help diagnose the concussion. He described his emotional state not feeling like himself. “You almost feel, you don’t care about anything.” Konerko also said it hurt for several days just to shift his eyes.

In the video below (will open in a different page), Konerko provides an incredible glimpse into the physiological and psychological symptoms of brain injury.

The one part we take exception to is Konerko’s account [beginning at 1:16] of being blindsided by the actual impact which allowed for a “better chance of getting rattled and the brain moving.” The fact is we know that nothing, not even anticipating a blow, can prevent the brain from moving inside the skull.

Concussion TV Offers Online Videos and Webcasts

As concussion awareness rises, so does the variety of educational resources available. Internet TV Channel, part of the Sports Pro Community Network (SPCN TV) is an online network committed to bringing athletes, parents, coaches, athletic trainers, personal trainers, medical and sports business professionals the latest information on concussions and traumatic brain injury (TBI). The website is filled with free videos and webcasts featuring renowned specialists and parents of youth athletes discussing this “silent injury.”