August 21, 2024 - Bakersfield, CA - Guardian Caps Coming to High School. But will they work? We may have to get through a season or two to know. See A Positive Step Forward: High Schools Adopt Helmets Seen in NFL, reported by Leslie Valle, Bakersfield Now.
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August 18, 2024 - Will we see Guardian Caps in NFL games this year? More importantly, will they help reduce concussions? See Why Some NFL Players Are Wearing Guardian Caps in Preseason Games, reported by Mark Maske, Washington Post.
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August 16, 2024 - San Francisco, CA - CTE Wave Is Coming In Women's Sports: Experts Cite Dire Need For More Research, reported by Marisa Ingemi, San Francisco Chronicle.
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April 9, 2024 - New Advances in Helmet Technology and Concussion Prevention. Out with some old helmets and in with some new. See NFL Helmet Testing: 5 Models Deemed Highest-Performing Ever, 6 Others Banned, reported by Mark Maske.
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March 27, 2024 - Shelton, WA - Shelton High School Football Coach Resigns After Unsanctioned Drill Injures Several, reported by Farah Jadran and Alex Didion, NBC TV5 (Seattle)
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February 6, 2023 - "Females may be more susceptible to concussion, and they also have worse and prolonged symptoms after their injury than men, according to a review of 25 studies of sport-related concussion published in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine." See These Young Female Athletes Died By Suicide. They All Had Head Injuries in Common, reported by Amy Woodyat, CNN.
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January 23, 2023 - Berkeley, CA - UC Berkeley Pays Cheerleader Nearly $700K After Three Concussions Gave Her 'a 24-7 Headache', reported by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
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December 19, 2022 - Does the Q-Collar Really Help Protect Athletes? See Will This Device Protect Athletes' Brains, Or Only Make Them Think It Does? reported by Matthew Futterman, New York Times, December 19, 2022.
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September 22, 2022 - Linden, NJ - Linden High School Football Player Dies Weeks After Game Injury, District Announces, reported by Suzanne Russell, mycentraljersey.com.
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September 3, 2022 - Lubbock, TX - High School Football Player Dies After Suffering Head Injury In Game, reported by Daniel Bates, MSN.com
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July 22, 2022 - More on Soccer Headers and Concussions. See Does Soccer Still Need The Header?, reported by Rory Smith, New York Times, July 22, 2022.
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June 28, 2022 - A Diagnosis Brings C.T.E. Into American Pro Soccer, reported by Andrew Keh, New York Times. The late Scott Vermillion is the first American pro soccer player diagnosed with CTE.
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June 27, 2022 - Boston,MA - Your genetic makeup can increase/decrease your chance of getting concussions. See Association of APOE Genotypes and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Kathryn Atherton, Xudong Han, and Jaeyoon Chung, Journal of The American Medical Association. See also, the Boston University Press Release
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February 17, 2022 - Norway - Soccer Headers May Disrupt Key 'Pathways' In Brain, Healthday.
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February 16, 2022 - CTE With No Contact? Sledders face the dreaded "sled head." See The Hidden Reason Olympic Sledding Is So Dangerous, reported by Marie Cascione, Vox.com. For more information on sled head see Concussions In Sledding Sports and The Unrecognized "Sled Head": A Systematic Review, by Melissa McCradden and Michael Cusimano, Frontiers In Neurology, September 18, 2018.
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December 16, 2020 - Concussion Substitute Trials Get Go-Ahead and FA Ready To Act In Cup, reported by Paul MacInnes, The Guardian
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July 14, 2020 - A Majority of Youth Football Helmets Do Not Fit Properly, A Risk Factor For More Severe and Lengthy Concussions. The National Athletic Trainers' Association, July 14, 2020 press release on research to be published later this year.
December 12, 2019 - Palo Alto, CA - This Helmet Will Save Football. Actually, Probably Not, reported by Michael Powell, New York Times.
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October 23, 2019 - The NFHS Voice: No Linkage To CTE From Playing High School Football, reported by Dr. Karissa Niehoff. This is the NFHS's response to the Concussion Legacy Foundation's Tackle Can Wait video.
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October 10, 2019 - Tackle Can Wait - The Concussion Legacy Foundation's innovative video, using a smoking analogy to advise parents to have their children wait until they're old enought to play football.
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August 14, 2019 - Hanover, NH - Cutting Injuries and Concussions the High Tech Way. See Virtual Reality and Robotic Tackling Dummies - How Dartmouth Is Shaping The Future of Football, reported by Hallie Grossman, ESPN.com
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April 18, 2019 - Boulder, CO - Will a University's Board Stand Up To An Old-Fashioned Football Coach Who Wants Players to "Hit, Hit, Hit."? See At Colorado, A Breach In Football's Wall, reported by Michael Powell, New York Times.
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April 17, 2019 - Denver, CO - A Giant Laid Low By Too Many Blows To The Head, reported by Michael Powell, New York Times.
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April 10, 2019 - First Step To Finding CTE in Living People. See Abnormal Levels of A Protein Linked To CTE Found In NFL Players' Brains, Study Shows, reported by Ken Belson and Benedict Carey, New York Times.
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March 28, 2019 - Portland, OR - Former High School Football Star Sues Over Concussions, reported by Sergio Olmos, Investigate West.
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February 26, 2019 - Bill Would Ban Youth Tackle Football In Massachusetts. Polling Shows Voters May Support It. Reported by Steve Koczela, WBUR, Boston, MA.
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February 7, 2019 - Oregon - Investigate West Goes Beyond The Concussion Numbers - And Finds Out That Certified Athletic Trainers Are Very Important. See Rattling The Data: Concussion Investigation Gleans Lessons From Public Documents, reported by Jacob Fenton and Lee Van Der Voo, Investigate West.
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January 27, 2019 - Where are the football players going? The answer might surprise you as parents who pull their kids from football are placing them in other high concussion risk sports. See Wealthy Parents Are Shying Away From Football, But Not From Low-Concussion Sports, reported by Bob Cook, Forbes.com. And, the reader should note that the headline should read, "Not From High - Concussion Sports" as the whole point of Cook's article is that parents who are pulling their kids from football because of its high concussion risk are placing the children in other high concussion risk sports. It's enough to make a football fan a little paranoid. But, maybe the point is that football is unacceptably high risk to the wealthy parents who are the subject of the article while other high concussion sports may have a high risk, but that high risk is deemed acceptable for any of a great number of reasons.
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January 22, 2019 - The Fight Over The Future of Football Has Become a Battle For California's Soul, reported by Michael Weinreb, The Ringer
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January 17, 2019 - For The NFL and All of Football, A New Threat: An Evaporating Insurance Market, reported by Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada, ESPN.com.
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January 12, 2019 - Richmond, CA - What Will Football Helmets Look Like In Future? UC Berkeley Scientists May Know, reported by Al Saracevic, San Francisco Chronicle. The promise of that magic helmet looms large. We want this, but the promise of the perfect helmet has led many people to fall prey to bad equipment and bad advertising. Hopefully, this one's different.
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October 25 - 28, 2018 - See The San Francisco Chronicle's Special Multi-Part Report on The Future of Football: Part I, Reform: Making Football Safer, reported by Eric Branch; Part II, Participation: Football's Dwindling Pipeline, reported by Matt Kawahara; Part III, Evolution: Tomorrow's Game, reported by Ron Kroichick; and Part IV, A Killer Game, reported by Al Saracevic.
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September 30, 2018 - If Football Dies, It'll Be Through Attrition, Not Legislation, reported by Bob Cooke, Forbes.com.
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September 22, 2018 – Chapel Hill, NC - If football dies, this is how it will start. See ‘The Sport Is Literally Dying’: Local High Schools Grapple With Football’s Decline, reported by Jack Frederick, The Daily Tar Heel (The University of North Carolina’s student paper).
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August 6, 2018 - Palo Alto, CA - Using Virtual Reality To Fight Concussions. See Stanford Researchers Start Concussion Study With High School Athletes (published in print as A Close Eye On Concussions), reported by Rebecca Aydin, San Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 2018, page D-1.
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August 2, 2018 - Morristown, NJ - Turning A Bad Concussion Story Into a Good Concussion Story. See Former West Morris football player turns traumatic brain injury into inspirational podcast, reported by Jane Havsy, Morristown Daily Record. Kevin founded the Heads 'N Tales podcast, which "share[s] inspiring stories of perseverance and the latest innovations in sports health."
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May 5, 2018 - New Jersey, The Director of the Sports Concussion of New Jersey Questions Whether the Recent Multi-State Legislation To Ban Youth Tackle Football Before Age 12 Is Premature. See Concussion expert: Should we ban tackle football before the age of 12?, by Rosemarie Moser, Ph.D., Opinion Column in NJ.com.
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April 27, 2018 - Jacksonville, FL - Click here for The Florida Times-Union's Special Report: Football's Concussion Crisis: Attention Is Focused But Progress Is Slowed, reported by John Reid.
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April 4, 2018 - Four States Considering Youth Tackle Football Bans, reported by Jacob Feldman, SI.com.
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February 26, 2018 – Cambridge, MA – Cambridge Public Health Department Study Finds Disturbing News On Cambridge Youth Concussions. See Study: 1 in 7 Cambridge Youth Athletes Experience Concussion Symptoms, reported by Jackie Contreras, Matt Dresens and Aleah Floyd, Cambridge Wicked Local.
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February 24, 2018 - Concussions Can Be Detected With New Blood Test Approved By F.D.A., reported by Sheila Kaplan and Ken Belson, New York Times. The FDA test is called the Banyan Brain Trauma Indicator. If it's affordable and becomes widespread, it could be a game-changer in concussion testing. For more information, see, FDA Authorizes Marketing of First Blood Test To Aid In The Evaluation of Concussion In Adults, FDA News Release, February 14, 2018.
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February 9, 2018 - Maryland - Maryland Tackle Football Bill Absorbs Early Hits, reported by Jeff Barker, Baltimore Sun. This is one of a number of Bills to limit or ban youth contact sports. This Bill bars tackle football until high school, and addresses heading in soccer and checking in youth lacrosse and ice hockey.
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February 9, 2018 - California - Youth Tackle Football Could Be Banned In California By Next Year, reported by Ted Andersen, San Francisco Chronicle. California joins New York and Maryland with proposed legislation to ban youth tackle football. The Maryland Bill does not look like it has strong political support. The proponent of the California Bill has won on other youth sports issues.
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November 29, 2017 - Lancaster, PA - Author, non-profit leader, and former college profession John Gerdy argues that it's time to separate amateur sports from educational institutions, noting that the concussion crisis goes against everything that we stand for in education. See High School Football: The Folly of Trying To Sustain The Unsustainable, Johngerdy.com.
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November 27, 2017 - Chicago, IL - New Studies Show Brain Impact of Youth Football, Radiological Association of North America.
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November 15, 2017 - Chicago, IL - Former NFL Player Confirmed As 1st Diagnosis of CTE in Living Patient, reported by Julio Jacobo, ABC News.
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October 19, 2017 - State Laws Have Reduced Concussion Risks In High School Kids, Study Finds, reported by William Wan, Washington Post. The Post is reporting on a study in the American Journal of Public Health. To read that study, click here.
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September 26, 2017 - England - Concussion Concerns Hit English Youth Rugby. See Tackling and Scrums Should Be Banned From School Rubgy Government Urged, reported by Mark Waghorn, Bexhill-On-Sea Observer.
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September 25, 2017 - Roger Pielke, the Director of the University of Colorado's Sports Governance Center, asks, Has the United States Reached Peak (American) Football?, Commentary Section, playthegame.org.
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September 19, 2017 - Boston, MA - New Boston University Study Links Youth Football To Significant Health Risks Later In Life, reported by Cam Smith, USA Today.
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September 5, 2017 - Livermore, CA - Safer Helmets Now Part of The Uniform For High School Players In Livermore, reported by Beth Jensen, San Jose Mercury News.
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September 1, 2017 - Concussion Research Might Be Gradually Finding Ways to Cure CTE .... In Mice. Humans will have to wait at least a decade if the science advances. See The Race Is On For A 'Concussion Pill" As New NFL Season Begins, reported by Mike Tanier, Bleacherreport.com.
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August 29, 2017 - Washington, D.C. - WTOP radio in Washington, D.C. is running a multi-episode piece on the concussion crisis. Click here for Part 1 of the Bad Brains Special Report, reported by Noah Frank.
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August 23 2017 - Is the bell tolling for football? It's too early to tell, but anecdotal data shows the potential for a severe drop in participation in 2017-18 and statistical data showed a drop in 2016-17. See More Ominous Signs For Football, reported by Ann Killion, San Francisco Chronicle, August 11, 2017 page B-1; Study on CTE Has Many Football Coaches, Players Reassessing Their Sport, reported by John Altavilla, Hartford Courant, August 3, 2017; and Hail Mary? Senator Seeks Legislation to Save Football Program, reported by Joe Zedalis, NJ.com, August 2, 2017 (reporting on a New Jersey State Senator's attempt to override State athletic rules to allow two schools to combine their failing football programs). Also, see High School Sports Participation Increases For 28th Straight Year, Nears 8 Million Mark, NFHS News, August 7, 2017 (while high school sports participation increased, the media focus was on a decline of 25,503 players participating in high school football nationally); Worth the Risk? Players, Coaches and Parents Wonder if Football Can Be Saved From Dangers of Hits to The Head, reported by Matthew De George, PA Prep Live, August 22, 2017; and Top New Jersey High School Drops Varsity Football Team Amid Slump in Players, Nationwide Debate, NBC-TV4, New York, NY., August 23, 2017.
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August 15, 2017 - Boston MA - The Concussion Legacy Institute Rolls Out its Team Up Speak Up program: the program has coaches "speak up" with a brief concussion awareness speech, and teammates pledge to speak up if they see a teammate take a hit to the head. Another step toward changing the concussion culture. For a report on the program see Tell Coach If Your Teammate Takes A Hit, Concussion Program Urges, reported by Rob Ferguson, Toronto Star.
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August 8, 2017 - Does anecdotal information about pro football players with CTE get in the way of statistical reality? MomsTeam's Brooke de Lench argues that it does. See CTE: Is The Media Scaring Young Athletes to Death?, Huffington Post.
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July 25, 2017 - Dr. Ann McKee studied 111 brains of deceased former N.F.L. players. 110 had CTE. You can read about McKee's research on the 111 N.F.L. brains and 91 other brains of deceased non-N.F.L. players. See 110 N.F.L. Brains, reported by Joe Ward, Josh Williams and Sam Manchester, New York Times. See also Jesse Mez, MD, MS1,2; Daniel H. Daneshvar, MD, PhD1,3; Patrick T. Kiernan, BA, Clinicopathological Evaluation of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Players of American Football, Journal of American Medical Association, July 25, 2017.
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July 21, 2017 - Miami, FL - Miami Dolphins To Fund Concussion Testing for Miami-Dade Public Schools, reported by Armando Salguero, Miami Herald, July 21, 2017
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July 16, 2017 - New York, NY - Lawyers Make Their Pitch After NFL Concussion Suit. See After NFL Concussion Settlement, Feeding Frenzy of Lawyers and Lenders, reported by Ken Belson, New York Times.
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July 3, 2017 - Wisconsin - Study of 3,904 former Wisconsin high school football players from 1957 finds that the football players were no worse off neurologically than their non-football playing counterparts. See Late in Life, Former High School Football Players No Worse Off Mentally, reported by Andrew Seaman, Reuters News Service. This study mirrors the findings of a Minnesota study that found that high school football players from one school that was studied from 1956-1970 did not have an increased risk of degenerative brain diseases compared with their non-football playing counterparts. See High School Football Players, 1956-1970, Did Not Have Increase Of Neurodegenerative Diseases, reported by Susan Barber Lindquist, Mayo Clinic Press Release.
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June 2, 2017 - Tampa, FL - Concussions are driving youth football players from tackle leagues to flag football leagues. See Future of Football: Flag vs. Tackle the Concussion Battleground for Children, reported by Matt Baker, Tampa Bay Times.
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March 15, 2017 - Knoxville, TN - High School Baseball Coach Allegedly Pelts Players With Pitches to Toughen Them Up. Hardin Valley Academy's head baseball coach Joe Michalski allegedly ran a drill where he hit players with multiple pitches to teach them not to bail out on inside pitches. Some players were bruised (ya think), and the matter exploded into negative publicity where a mother pointed out that one of the players in the drill had already incurred two concussions. Michalski may go too far in practices as he has been investigated for his role in other injuries at practice according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. See Hardin Valley Baseball Coach, Assistant Accused of Hitting Players With Pitches, reported by Megan Boehnke and Troy Provost-Heron, Knoxville News Sentinel.
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February 16, 2017 - Pittsburgh, PA - Former West Mifflin Football Player Files Concussion Lawsuit, reported by Andrew Goldstein, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Shane Skillpa, the former player, sued his school district and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA). It is too early to assess the claims against the district, but the claims against the District could end up mirroring the unsuccessful claims against the Illinois High School Association in Pierscionek v. IHSA. See Judge Dismisses Concussion Lawsuit Against IHSA, reported by John Keilman and Dawn Rhodes, Chicago Tribune, October 28, 2015.
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February 1, 2017 - Click here for a very thorough CNN report on the relationship between soccer heading and concussions. See Soccer: Heading The Ball Linked To Concussion Symptoms, reported by Susan Scutti, cnn.com. Readers should note that the title is a bit misleading as most soccer concussions have nothing to do with heading - as the article points out.
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January 31, 2017 - Orlando, FL - USA Football introduces a streamlined version of football with a smaller field, fewer players, no three-point stance, no kickoffs and punts. Is it a safer way to play? See Not Safe For Children? Football's Leaders Make Drastic Changes To Youth Game, reported by Ken Belson, New York Times.
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January 17, 2017 - High school soccer concussion rates are going up ... or are they. The increased focus/awareness of concussions has led people who wouldn't have reported concussions in the past to report them. This drives concussion rates up, and makes it hard to tell whether and when there are more concussions and not just an increase in reports due to increased awareness. This means that we get a report on increased concussions in soccer while Dr. Morteza Khodaee from the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who was the leader of the study, is quoted as saying, the increase "could be mainly due to a better recognition of concussion by medical and coaching staff." See US High School Soccer Concussions On The Rise, reported by Reuters News Service on Foxnews.com.
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January 13, 2017 - Boston, MA - Boston University Study Links Concussions and Alzheimer's Disease, reported by Erin Fitzsimonds and Beth Ward, Western Mass. News TV. This study looked at 160 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, but the implications for athletics is clear. This isn't the first study to link concussions to neurologic disorders other than CTE. While CTE has been highly publicized, there are scientists who believe that concussions could be linked not only to Alzheimer's disease but also to ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). See Did Lou Gehrig Actually Die of 'Lou Gehrig's Disease'?, reported by Dr. Howard Markel, PBS Newshour, June 17, 2016.
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December 2016 - For a comprehensive report on the role of genetics in the concussion crisis - and an excellent scientific discussion of the role of the APOE gene, see Genetic Influences In Traumatic Brain Injury: Chapter 9 of Translational Research in Traumatic Brain Injury, written by Ellen Bennett, Karin Reuter-Rice, and Daniel Laskowitz, 2016.
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December 2016 - Personal Injury lawyers are monitoring the Q-Collar: can the Q-Collar really reduce concussions? See - Research Shows Promising Results For A Device Designed To Protect Athletes From Sports-Related Brain Injuries: Experimental Neck Collar Inspired By Woodpeckers And Bighorn Sheep, reported by Science Daily (from material provided by Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center), June 2016. The Science Daily article is interesting in that you have a University hospital involved in a study that concludes that wearing a neck device called the "Q-Collar" "may prevent or reduce the devastating effects of head collisions in sports. The Q-Collar is designed to press gently on the jugular vein to slow blood outflow increasing the brain's blood volume." In laymen's term, the Q-Collar slows blood outflow, causing the brain to fit more tightly in the skull cavity, thereby reducing the brain sloshing that can result in concussions. The obvious issue here is that we have research that ultimately advocates for a product, and sometimes such research has led to poor and misleading results. We've seen numerous products claim that they can reduce concussions. Few if any of such claims have had merit. We'll have to see if this research holds up when the product is put to the test beyond the two Cincinnati high schools used in the study. And, it's not just us who's waiting as the personal injury lawyers made clear. In this December 2016 posting, we see a personal injury law firm stating that they're looking.
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December 15, 2016 - Pembroke Pines, FL - Cities can use the power of the permit to ensure that youth groups meet certain standards before receiving field permits. Here, Pembroke Pines resolved structural problems in youth sports by requiring youth sports clubs to provide financial statements, show that they don't pay coaches, show that they have Board meetings and that those meetings are open to parents, and requires teams to meet a residency requirement under which 75% of the players must live in the City. See Pembroke Pines Tightens Rules On Youth Sports Leagues, reported by Brian Ballou, Florida Sun Sentinel. These same powers can be used for concussion regulations. See Power of The Permit: Improving Youth Sports Safey One Municipality At A Time, Brooke de Lench, momsteam.com, July 24, 2015 and Smart Teams Talk: Missouri Law Professor Doug Abrams Urges Use of Power of Permit To Improve Youth Sports Safety, September 2014; and Concussion Safety In Children's Sports: A Central Role For the "Power of the Permit.", Douglas E. Abrams, University of Maryland Journal of Business and Technology Law, Vol. 10, Issue 1, Article 2 (2014).
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December 12, 2016 - One of the difficulties of assessing the risk of football is that you can only test for CTE when somebody is dead. However, you can gain some valuable information about the risks of football if you look at age related illnesses such as dementia, Parkinsons, and ALS and compare football players to their general population counterparts. The Mayo clinic just conducted such a study, finding that high school football players from one Minnesota school that was studied from 1956-1970 did not have an increased risk of degenerative brain diseases compared with their non-football playing counterparts. See High School Football Players, 1956-1970, Did Not Have Increase Of Neurodegenerative Diseases, reported by Susan Barber Lindquist, Mayo Clinic Press Release.
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December 12, 2016 - Texas - Texas's University Interscholastic League (the governing body for Texas high school sports) and UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute announce the formation of a registry to track brain injuries in all UIL governed midlde and high school events. As the UIL has more than 1,400 schools and 800,000 + athletes, this registry will be the nation's largest. The registry will rely upon athletic trainers to report brain injuries to a central database. See the UIL's Press Release. Also, see UIL's Concussion Registry Is A Step In The Right Direction But Should Go Even Further, Dallas Morning News Editorial, December 13, 2016.
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December 1, 2016 - Marshall, TX - In the midst of the concussion crisis, a youth football program is reborn. See Tackle Football Makes A Comeback In The Heart of Texas, reported by Ken Belson, New York Times.
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December 1, 2016 - How do you know your sport has a problem? Listen to what Malcolm Gladwell calls the secondary conversation about the sport. The first conversation is the conversation about on-field performance. But, the secondary conversations are telling. Gladwell notes that a major secondary conversation for baseball is analytics. Moreover, Gladwell notes that some people don't necessarily like watching baseball but enjoy the analytics discussion. Then, Gladwell notes that a major secondary conversation in football is, well, concussions. Not good! Of course, Gladwell is on record as saying football is a "stupid, stupid sport" so he's going to be a bit biased. For example, a major secondary conversation in baseball is how youth pitchers are overused to the extent that Tommy John surgery is viewed as a regular part of the development of youth pitchers. That's a pretty ugly secondary conversation that Gladwell ignores in order to emphasize his attack on football. I also note that in football, fantasy football is just as big as baseball analytics and that's a neutral secondary conversation (it's hard to call gambling a positive secondary conversation). Still, Gladwell has a point. When a major part of the discussion of one's sport is concussions, one's sport is not in the optimal place, and one's sport will be vulnerable to lawsuits and threats to eliminate the sport or drastically change it. See Simmons vs. Gladwell: The Future of Football, The Ringer, December 1, 2016. Football need not worry, though. The last time football was drastically changed was the early part of the twentieth century, and those changes, which were led by Teddy Roosevelt, modernized the game, eliminated a wave of deaths in football (yes, pre-reform football was far less safe then today's football) and led to the creation of the NCAA (some may not view that as a positive, but the early NCAA was a reform organization)
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November 30, 2016 - CDC To Back New Research On Sports Concussion Prevention: Focus On Changing Culture In Youth Sports, reported by Ryan Basen, Med Page Today. The CDC will fund studies looking at behavior changes and concussion prevention, and the CDC will pilot test a national concussion surveillance system.
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November 29, 2016 - Nevada - Clark County School Board Candidate Russell Davis Wants To Kill Football. See Friday Night Lights Out: The Case For Abolishing High School Football, reported by Patrick Hruby, Vice.com.
November 22, 2016 - HBO's Real Sports Covers Concussion Crisis In Youth and High School Sports. See Cost of The Game, reported by HBO Real Sports. Real Sports also covered Dartmouth College and their use of the Mobile Virtual Player (MVP). Click here for details. Click here for video. And click here for video of the Pittsburgh Steelers using the MVP.
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October 24, 2016 - North Carolina - A research team led by Dr. Chris Whitlow from Wake Forest University conducted a study of 25 eight to thirteen year-old youth football players. None of the players suffered a concussion during their season. The research team used the HITS system to study their subconcussive impacts, and used DTI (an advanced MRI system) to look at imaging of the players' brains. The research team made the following findings: "We found that these young players who experienced more cumulative head impact exposure had more changes in brain white matter, specifically decreased FA, in specific parts of the brain," Dr. Whitlow said. "These decreases in FA caught our attention, because similar changes in FA have been reported in the setting of mild TBI." The team added, "We do not know if there are important functional changes related to these findings, or if these effects will be associated with any negative long-term outcomes," Dr. Whitlow said. "Football is a physical sport, and players may have many physical changes after a season of play that completely resolve. These changes in the brain may also simply resolve with little consequence. More research is needed to understand the meaning of these changes to the long-term health of our youngest athletes." You can read about Whitlow's study at the Radiological Society of North America's website. See Brain Changes Seen in Youth Football Players without Concussion, RSNA Press Release, Oct. 24, 2016.
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October 10, 2016 - Momsteam.com expands to a concussion clearinghouse website at concussions.smart-teams.org . Click here for articles, resources and videos on the smart-teams site.
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September 30, 2016 - More on concussion underreporting. See Flaws In The Data, reported by Michael Florek and Greg Riddle, Dallas Morning News. This article is part of a four part Special Report from the Morning News. For the other parts, see The Helmet Conundrum, reported by Matt Wixon, September 30, 2016; Repurposed and Ready, reported by Michael Florek, September 30, 2016; Solving The Unsolvable, reported by Greg Riddle, September 30, 2016.
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September 29, 2016 - Study Shows That Female High School Athletes Underreport Their Concussions (but not as much as male athletes do). See Underreporting of Concussions and Concussion-Like Symptoms In Female High School Athletes, McDonald, Tracy MSN, RN; Burghart, Mark A. MOT; Nazir, Niaman MD, MPH, Journal of Trauma Nursing, September/October 2016 - Volume 23 - Issue 5 - p 241–246 ; and see Study Reveals Many Female High School Athletes Do Not Report Concussion Injuries To Trainers, news-medical.net, September 29, 2016.
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September 1, 2016 - New Lawsuit Points Finger At Pop Warner For Mismanagement of Head Injuries, reported by Michael McCann and Austin Murphy, SI.com. For more on this lawsuit, see Talking With A Mother Who Sued Pop Warner Football, reported by Jayne McManus, ESPN.com, September 8, 2016. Click here for the complaint in Archie v. Pop Warner.
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August 22, 2016 - ImPact Testing Gains FDA Approval. See FDA Allows Marketing of First-Of-Kind Computerized Cognitive Tests To Help Assess Cognitive Skills After A Head Injury, FDA Press Release.
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August 11, 2016 - U.S. News and World Report Looks At High School Football Concussions In This Report on Second Impact Syndrome. See Sudden Death: The Mysterious Brain Injury That's Killing Young Athletes, reported by Alan Neuhauser, U.S. News and World Report, August 11, 2016.
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August 4, 2016 - California - California HS Football Participation Dropped By More Than 3, 000 Players In 2015, reported by Cam Smith, USA Today. The big question is, of course, whether the drop off is solely attributable to the concussion crisis or whether there are other factors involved.
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July 27, 2016 - Heads Up Football Takes A Hit On Bad Concussion Reduction Data. This NFL funded program has done a world of good in promoting safety in youth football, but there'll be some negative fallout from overstating their effectiveness. In a data driven world, you can do good things but you can't overstate your data. See NFL-Backed Youth Program Says It Reduced Concussions. The Data Disagrees. Reported by Alan Schwartz, New York Times, July 27, 2016.
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July 18, 2016 - New Study: Limited Full-Contact Football Practice Decreases Head Impacts By 42 Percent, reported by Cam Smith, USA Today Outside The Box Column.
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July 11, 2016 - Colorado Springs, CO - Concussions on The Rise For Adolescents, Researchers Say, published by American Orthopaedic Sociey for Sports Medicine.
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June 19, 2016 - Seattle, WA - Up to 2 Million Kids A Year Suffer Concussions From Sports, Play, Study Says by JoNel Aleccia, Seattle Times.
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June 16, 2016 - Michigan - Michigan Takes Stand Against Standard Concussion Safety Practice. This is a most unusual stance and nobody is sure why Michigan is digging in their heels on this matter. See Michigan Balks At Rule Shortening Full-Contact Practice For High School Football by Ted Roelofs, Bridge Magazine.
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June 15, 2016 - Cincinnati, OH - Research Shows Promising Results For A Device Designed To Protect Athletes From Sports-Related Brain Injuries: Experimental Neck Collar Inspired By Woodpeckers And Bighorn Sheep, reported by Science Daily (from material provided by Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center. This article is interesting in that you have a University hospital involved in a study that concludes that wearing a neck device called the "Q-Collar" "may prevent or reduce the devastating effects of head collisions in sports. The neck device, called a Q-Collar, is designed to press gently on the jugular vein to slow blood outflow increasing the brain's blood volume." In laymen's term, the Q-Collar slows blood outflow, causing the brain to fit more tightly in the skull cavity, thereby reducing the brain sloshing that can result in concussions. The obvious issue here is that we have research that ultimately advocates for a product, and sometimes such research has led to poor and misleading results. We've seen numerous products claim that they can reduce concussions. Few if any of such claims have had merit. We'll have to see if this research holds up when the product is put to the test beyond the two Cincinnati high schools used in the study. And, it's not just us who's waiting. In this December 2016 posting, we see a personal injury law firm stating that they're looking.
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June 7, 2016 - Florida - FHSAA Limits Live Contact For High School Football, NFHS.org. Florida's limit is 30 minutes per day and 80 minutes total per week during the regular season with a slight expansion in contact prior to the first regular season game.
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June 2, 2016 - Boston, MA - Can CTE be diagnosed in living patients? Diagnose CTE, a $16 million seven year study funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, aims to find out. Diagnose CTE "will be the largest to date of living former football players and includes 240 men ages 45 to 74. The first participant is expected to be enrolled in July, and the project involves about 50 investigators representing 17 institutions." See Can Brain Damage Be Found In Retired Football Players? by Kay Lazar, Boston Globe, June 2, 2016.
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May 13, 2016 - Washington, D.C. - Dartmouth Coach: Tackle Free Practice Reduces Concussions, A.P. Wire Service on yahoo.com.
When you eliminate contact and tackling at your football practices, you need to find some way to make sure that new players are trained in proper tackling techniques and that current players stay sharp. Dartmouth faced this problem when they banned tackling in practice and they solved it with the Mobile Virtual Player (MVP). Click here for details. Click here for video. And click here for video of the Pittsburgh Steelers using the MVP.
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May 12, 2016 - Pop Warner Football Eliminates Kickoffs by Jill Martin, CNN.Com. The ban is only applicable in Pop Warner's three lowest age-groups; still, this is a major step for a football organization. Kickoffs do pose a tremendous injury and concussion risk, and we've seen the NFL try to reduce kickoffs by changing touchback rules and moving the ball up on kickoffs, but an outright ban on kickoffs is a move that was probably inevitable and that may very well spread quickly.
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March 2016 - How do concussions impact the insurance landscape? See School Liability - Student Athlete Concussions in the U.S. by Jeffrey Weisel, Esq. and Charlie Kingdollar, Insurance Issues (a publication of Gen Re, a Berkshire Hathaway Company), March 2016.
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March 30, 2016 – CONCUSSION NEWS: Concussion Test In Blink of An Eye by Benny Evangelista, San Francisco Chronicle, March 30, 2016 page C-1. Reporting on Eye-Sync, one of a number of newer, faster, cheaper concussion tests. Click here to view the article on the SF Chronicle site.
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February 3, 2016 - New York, N.Y. - Researcher Says In Five Years, CTE Test Can Be Given To Living by Michael O’Keefe, New York Daily News, February 3, 2016. The headline is not 100% accurate as this quote from the article reveals: “Boston University neurology professor Robert Stern said he believes his team will develop methods to identify the disease in living patients before Super Bowl 60 in 2026.” 2026 isn’t five years, but elsewhere in the article, the Daily News notes that Professor Stern said the test will be available in five to ten years. Click on the link and see for yourself. Also, click here for Dr.Stern's comprehensive CTE powerpoint from 2015.
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December 20, 2015 - What is the role of APOE-e4 in CTE? In pursuit of genetic predispositions to CTE and Alzheimer's. Click here for "This Is Your Brain On CTE", a report from the Sports Science Underground website
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December 11, 2015 - Pennsylvania - Lawsuit Alleges PIAA Failed to Protect Students From Concussions by Jason Cato, Pittsburgh Tribune. This case looks like a rehash of the Illinois Concussion suit, but time will tell. We will follow this case and provide periodic updates.
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December 10, 2015 - New Haven, CT - Cheerleaders Don't Get Hurt Very Often - But When They Do They Really Get Hurt Badly And They Have Lots of Concussions. See Cheerleading Injuries More Serious Than You May Think, reported by Jocelyn Maminta, WTNH Channel 8.
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November 23, 2015 - Pennsylvania - Researchers identify SNTF proteins, which may indicate long-term concussion damage. See New Protein Biomarker Identifies Damaged Brain Wiring After Concussion, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's Science Daily.
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October 20, 2015 - The American Academy of Pediatrics refused to recommend a ban on tackle football. Instead, they issued seven common sense recommendations. See Tackling In Youth Football, American Academy of Pediatrics, Pediatrics (the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics), page 2015 (October 2015). Click here for Abstract.
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July 19, 2015 - Youth and High School Sports Concussion Cases: Do They Show The Limits of Litigation In Making Sports Safer, Collins with Lindsey Barton Straus, MomsTeam.com.
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January 10, 2015 - Illinois Concussion Class Action Lawsuit: More Questions Than Answers, MomsTeam.com, January 10, 2015
May 16, 2012 - Can you have a genetic predisposition to CTE? Is it possible that the same number and type of hits that lead one athlete to develop CTE may not lead another athlete to develop the disease? See Should Teen Football Players Be Tested For the Alzheimer's Gene?, reported by Robert Bazell, Chief Science and Medical Correspondent, NBC News.
