In recognition of March as Brain Injury Awareness Month, the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA) and its nationwide network of more than 40 chartered state affiliates is continuing its nationwide education and advocacy campaign: “A concussion is a brain injury. Get the facts.” This year’s campaign launches with radio and print public service announcements, awareness proclamations and special events. A state advocacy effort to introduce legislation to train coaches and protect youth athletes will continue throughout the year along with ongoing nationwide education.
In accordance with the BIAA, the Brain Injury Association of South Carolina (BIASC) will host its 4th annual ‘Run For Thought’ 5k run and 1 mile walk/roll on Saturday, March 19 in Greenvile. To register, click here.
“Arrowhead‘s Annual Traumatic Brain Injury Conference, set to take place on March 7, 2011 in Washington, D.C. has been organized to bring together individuals from the biopharmaceutical industry, government, military and academia to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing those involved in the research and development and commercialization of new therapies for acute and chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI),” a Medical News TODAY article reported earlier this month.
Attendees will hear from a number of industry professionals and R & D experts, including representatives from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the Shepherd Institute, Banyan Biomarkers, NeuroHealing Pharmaceuticals, and Duke University Medical Center, among others.
Presentations will address the following topics:
1. Animals Models and TBI: Translating Results to the Clinic
2. Designing Effective Clinical Trials
3. Drug Delivery Challenges Facing Developers of TBI Therapies
4. Acute TBI
5. Chronic Neurorehabilitation
6. Neuroprotection
7. Secondary Injury with TBI
8. Biomarkers and Molecular Diagnostics in TBI
The conference will take place on Monday, March 7th at the Executive Conference Center at Library Center in Arlington, VA. For information on attending, click here.
“It was the most traumatizing time of our lives,” Sharell Welch, the mother of a local high school athlete, says of the concussion her daughter sustained playing basketball last year. “The physical part of [the injury] is bad enough, but the emotional part of it is the most devastating. It took a toll on us as her family as well as her.”
With concussions on the rise among children and young adults — a study published in Pediatrics last year found that the number ER visits for concussions among those ages 5-18 in 2005 was more than twice what it had been eight years prior — traumatic experiences such as the one sustained by Aleighsa Welch and her family are increasing as well.
Efforts by lawmakers to reduce the risk of injury associated with youth athletics have become more critical than ever, so it’s a good thing that many states have passed or are considering passing “return to play” laws for brain-injured athletes. “The process generally starts after an athlete is symptom-free for at least 24 hours,” an article on youth concussions and “return to play” laws explains. “The protocol begins with light aerobic exercise and progresses through sport-specific exercise, non-contact training drills and full-contact practice before a return to games.”
Though this can be a painful exercise in patience for young athletes, it is one that doctors and lawmakers alike hope to see halt the rise in concussions among students, and one day, reverse the trend.
Researchers in Boston announced this week that they are experimenting with a noninvasive imaging technique to detect chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a debilitating condition caused by repeated concussions. The condition most commonly affects former athletes and until now has been detected only by autopsy.
The study involves five retired athletes — three NFL players, a boxer and a wrestler — and is being acknowledged as a preliminary first step toward diagnosis and treatment. Suspicious levels of certain chemicals were found in the former athletes’ brains when researchers performed ‘virtual biopsies’ on them: specialized types of MRI scans that measure biochemical abnormalities. Such chemical alterations were not found in the brains of five healthy study participants.
While there is currently no treatment for CTE, this virtual biopsy technique could provide researchers the ability to create and test medications that could lessen the negative effects of the condition. “The only way we can get to the point of studying potential treatments is to be able to diagnose it during life,” said Robert Stern, a study co-author and a director of the Boston University center studying CTE, in an interview with the Associated Press. The study, therefore, is of great significance to CTE sufferers and the medical community alike.
The nation’s largest association of professional neurologists recommended earlier this week that “any athlete suspected of suffering a concussion be removed from play immediately and be seen by a physician specially trained in the evaluation and treatment of brain trauma,” adding that no player should return to play before being cleared by said physician.
The statement was issued in support of the American Academy of Neurology’s attempt to set a new, more conservative and cautious standard for the treatment of brain injury in amateur sports. The group also recommended that a certified athletic trainer be present at all games and practices at which head trauma is a prevalent risk.
These recommendations are supported by evidence set forth in a study published in Pediatrics this summer that found the number of children who sustained sports-related head injuries to have more than doubled between the years 2000 and 2005. For more information on the subject, click here.
“The NFL has spoken,” a FOX Sports South article declared earlier this week. “It fined Falcons cornerback Dunta Robinson $50,000 on Tuesday for his hit on Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson in which Robinson himself suffered a concussion.”
Though some consider such penalties overly cautious or unfair, the League insists that it is not imposed new rules, but rather simply choosing to enforce old rules more strictly. “We will take all the criticism and all the backlash against those that say we are acting too aggressively… We are not going to be apologetic. We are not going to be defensive about it. We are going to protect our players and hopefully players at the lower levels as well by example,” executive VP of football operations Ray Anderson said. “We understand this is not just about the NFL. This is about safety at our level, at the college level, at the high school level, at the pee-wee level, because we are the standard bearer and we are committed to safety at the highest level.”
At the same time Robinson was fined last week, so were New England Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather and Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison — $50,000 and $75,000, respectively.
There’s no denying the inherent danger of professional football (or even pee-wee, for that matter). From a health standpoint, the NFL’s decision to enforce its rules barring excessively violent hits is therefore an incredibly important step in preserving both the lives and health of the sport’s players. Traumatic brain injuries such as concussions are all-too-often preventable, and their life-altering consequences unrecognized until it’s too late. The game of football will go on, the backlash will subside, and in the end, a number of players will have the League to thank for the protection of their safety.
“Public awareness of the pathological consequences of traumatic brain injury has [recently] been elevated,” an article in The New England Journal of Medicine read this summer, “not only by the recognition of the potential clinical significance of repetitive head injuries in high-contact sports… but also by the prevalence of vehicular crashes… and by modern warfare.” Citing such examples as the NFL’s creation of informational posters to be hung in team locker rooms, and the general increase in effort by automakers to improve vehicle safety measures, the article provides insight into the long term effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI).
“Many complications of traumatic brain injury are evident immediately or soon after injury,” it says. “Acute post-traumatic sensory, motor, and neurocognitive syndromes are presumed to occur as a result of contusions and axonal disruption. Seemingly mild closed-head injuries (i.e., those without skull fracture) may lead to diverse and sometimes disabling symptoms, such as chronic headaches, dizziness and vertigo, difficulty concentrating, word-finding problems, depression, irritability, and impulsiveness. The duration of such symptoms varies but can be months.”
“Data from helmet concussion monitors that are used on soldiers and football players can aid in predicting the character and location of lesions from an impact of a given force at given coordinates while improving the accuracy of diaries of people at risk for traumatic brain injury. Accurate diaries, in turn, should help in determining more accurately the number and severity of head injuries, allowing estimation of athletes’ cumulative risk. Individual differences in trauma tolerance and genetic influences must also be elucidated. These data can inform prospective studies of the cognitive, neuropsychiatric, and motor performance of soldiers, athletes, and other exposed populations, as well as informing the design of behavioral and pharmacologic interventions for prophylaxis or therapy. A challenge will be translating our improved understanding of the pathogenesis of traumatic brain injury into rational, evidence-based changes in public and sports policy that will minimize exposure to such injuries and their chronic neurodegenerative sequelae.”
For seven years running, the Brain Injury Association of South Carolina’s annual golf tournament has drawn players from around the region to our state’s capitol for an enjoyable afternoon of competition for a cause. On Tuesday, October 26th, players will gather at the Oak Hills Golf Club in Columbia to contribute to the BIASC’s efforts to raise traumatic brain injury (TBI) awareness. Interested in taking part? It’s not too late to sign up! Interested in contributing? It’s not too late to be a sponsor either. For more information, visit the BIASC’s website or Facebook page.
Traumatic brain injury is the number one cause of death for individuals ages 1-44 in South Carolina. Help make a difference this year by participating in this fantastic event.
