concussions

November 27, 2020

Kids With Concussions Need More Healing Time, Study Says

If your child or teenager currently plays a sport in San Clemente in which there is a risk of a concussion or another type of head injury, you probably have some background knowledge about kids and concussions. In recent years, research into sports-related concussions has shown the serious risks that children and teenagers face from concussions on the field, and the ways in which those concussion injuries, especially if they are repeat injuries, can have long-term consequences for the child into adulthood. In response to sports-related concussion research, coaches and schools in California and across the country changed protocols for injuries, requiring children and teens to take a certain amount of time away from games and practices until a head injury heals.

However, according to an article in Medical Daily, recent research published in the journal Orthopedics suggests that kids need significantly more time to heal than previous researchers suggested. Indeed, according to the authors of the study, teens who sustain sports-related concussions need at least a month away from any play to heal properly, and most teenage athletes are not taking that kind of time.

Concussions in Teenagers Heal Slowly

May 15, 2016

Brain Injury Markers Present in Former NFL Players

by Walton Law Firm

Just how pervasive are concussions and other forms of traumatic brain injury (TBI) among professional athletes? According to a recent article in MedPage Today, a recent study determined that more than 40% of all former NFL players show signs of having experienced TBI. In other words, many—if not all—of those former players could be at risk of developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease of the brain that results from a “history of repetitive brain trauma,” according to an information sheet from the Boston University CTE Center.

Will these new findings impact the ways in which players approach the game? Or do we need even more evidence of the severity of football injuries in order to change the way the sport is played?

MRI Scans Showed Signs of Brain Injury

March 18, 2016

‘Concussion’ Impacting High School Football Players

by Walton Law Firm

Typically, fictionalized film versions of real-life events often do not have a significant impact on the way youth athletes play football or make decisions about sports-related concussions. However, according to a recent report from NPR, the movie Concussion is seriously affecting decisions made by high school football players and their families. The film details the traumatic brain injury (TBI) research of Dr. Bennet Omalu, “the doctor who was the first to publish research on the degenerative brain disease he called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.”

High School Athletes Deciding Against Future Play

For Californians who have not heard of CTE or its effects, it is a degenerative disease of the brain that appears to develop as a result of multiple hits to the head that cause concussions. Given that football players commonly experience multiple concussions over their careers, CTE has become known as a serious risk for professional athletes. Nw, it looks as though youth players are also reconsidering the risks inherent in contact sports.