Mother Of College Football Player Who Committed Suicide, And Had Brain Disease, To Testify At Congressional Hearing

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Posted on 18th September 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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This Thursday’s Congressional hearing on youth sports concussions will have an especially interesting witness: the mother of the University of Pennsylvania football player who committed suicide, and was found to be suffering from the same brain disease nearly two dozen pro football players had.

The Rev. Kathy Brearley, mother of Owen Thomas, will testify at the hearing before the House Education and Labor Committee, The New York Times reported Saturday. Next week’s hearing will be the eighth one on athletes and concussions since October. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/sports/18concussions.html?scp=3&sq=Owen%20thomas&st=cse

Owen Thomas’ life and death raises troubling new questions about brain injury and football. The 21-year-old took his own life in April, and tests were done on his brain tissue. The news was released last week that Thomas had begun to develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease linked to repeated brain injury that often leads to depression and impulse control issues. 

The discovery was disturbing in that Thomas had never been diagnosed with a concussion, was still young at 21 and was only playing college football, not in the NFL.    

 The Congressional committee is weighing a law that would mandate that all public schools implement a concussion safety plan for all sports, offer special education for the injured who still have symptoms, and remove athletes immediately from practice and games if they are suspected of having a concussion, according to The Times.

The Times also cited particularly grim statistics from the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina: Roughly 32 high school and youth football players died or made incomplete recovery from head injuries from 2006 to 2009, double the number from the prior four-year period. 

Medical Experts And NFL Officials Gather For Conference On Brain Injury

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Posted on 2nd June 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Representatives of all 32 National Football League teams gathered in Washington today, Wednesday, to attend a conference on brain injury and hear its recommendations.

The teams’ medical officials were in town for a medical forum on the diagnosis and treatment of brain injuries that was conducted by John Hopkins University.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/01/AR2010060103682.html

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was among the speakers, reportedly addressing an audience of about 300 people at the forum.  http://www.sbnation.com/2010/6/2/1497910/nfl-seminar-concussion-player-safety-roger-goodell

Dr. Richard Ellenbogen and Dr. Hunt Batjer, the new co-chaiman of the NFL’s medical committee on head, neck and spine injuries, were also among those attending the conference.

The confab’s participants were slated to discuss the existing medical evidence on traumatic brain injury and make suggestions about what tack future research on diagnosis and treatmetn should take, according to The Washington Post. 

Ellenbogen told The Post that the NFL didn’t have any imput in the conference and don’t know what recommendations will be made.

He did say that he and Batjer will be open to using outside research to help the NFL craft new policies regarding players who get concussions.

The NFL was blasted during Congressional hearings last year because of skepticism league officials expressed about the long-term impact of concussions on players.

    

Female High School Athletes Describe The Lingering After Effects Of Their Concussions

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Posted on 22nd May 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Female high school athletes last week told a congressional committee about how the concussions they sustained playing sports changed their lives for the worse, as they continue to struggle to do tasks as simple as basic arithmetic.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/sports/football/21concussions.html

The House Committee on Education and Labor conducted a two-hour hearing Thursday in Washington that put the spotlight on how brain injury impacts the scholastic performance of student athletes, since these youths spend most of their recovery time in the classroom, not the field. The sessions also focused on female jocks.

Thursday’s testimony, particularly by 14-year-old Sarah Rainey, provided powerful evidence about why state laws protecting student athletes who suffer brain injury are necessary.  A soccer player at West Potomac High School, Rainey sustained a concussion five weeks ago, according to The New York Times.

Rainey was unconscious for several seconds after being hit in that game, yet after just taking a break for a sip of water  went right back in to play. Nothing could have been worse for a brain injury victim. She should have stayed off  the field, as evidenced by the fact that she doesn’t recall playing the rest of the game, which went into two overtimes. Such amnesia is a sign of brain injury.    

Since then, Rainey testified that she now needs a calculator to do easy math, and that her head is constantly “pounding,” as if she was wearing a compression headband.

Another committee witness and ex-high school brain-injured athlete, 19-year-old Michelle Pelton of Massachusetts, described how she suffered from pain, depression, memory loss and lack of concentration — again, all classic symptoms of concussion. 

According to The Times, Pelton described her everyday life  “as a battle,” adding, ”If  I can prevent even one person from experiencing that happened to me, then my trip here was a huge success.”

There have already been three hearings conducted by the House Judiciary Committee on concussions, which basically exposed how the National Football League’s policies were shamefully inadequate. Putting the national press’s focus on the issue helped prompt Legislatures across the country to pass laws to protect student athletes suspected of having brain injury.

The chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, George Miller, D-Calif., also had ordered a Government Accountability Office  report on sports concussions and youth athletes. It contains information and comparisions on the various state laws regarding student sports injuries.  

Teachers need to be educated about and sensitive to the problems that athletes with concussions have in class, and give them some leeway, according to testimony at the hearing from Dr. Gerry Gioia, chief of pediatric neuropsychology ay Children’s National Medical Center in Washington.