concussions

Discussion of Minnesota Girls High School Hockey

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greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Adult mental health crisis response phone numbers

Post by greybeard58 » Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:42 pm

Adult mental health crisis response phone numbers



County Seat/Large City Phone Numbers

Fond du Lac Fond du Lac 911
Leech Lake Cass Lake 911
Red Lake Band Red Lake 911
White Earth White Earth 1- 877-380-3621
County County Seat/Large City Phone Numbers
Aitkin Aitkin 1-800-462-5525
Anoka Anoka 1-763-755-3801
Becker Detroit Lakes 1-218-850-HELP(4357)
Beltrami Bemidji 1-800-422-0045
Benton Foley 1-800-635-8008
Big Stone Ortonville 1-800-432-8781
Blue Earth Mankato 1-877-399-3040
Brown New Ulm 1-877-399-3040
Carlton Carlton 1-844-772-4724
Carver Chaska 1-952-442-7601
Cass Walker 1-800-462-5525
Chippewa Montevideo 1-800-432-8781
Chisago Center City 1-800-523-3333
Clay Moorhead 1-800-223-4512
Clearwater Bagley 1-800-422-0045
Cook Grand Marais 1-844-772-4724
Cottonwood Windom 1-800-642-1525
Crow Wing Brainerd 1-800-462-5525
Dakota Hastings 1-952-891-7171
Dodge Mantorville 1-844-274-7472
Douglas Alexandria 1-701-364-0431
Faribault Blue Earth 1-877-399-3040
Fillmore Preston 1-844-274-7472
Freeborn Albert Lea 1-877-399-3040
Goodhue Red Wing 1-844-274-7472
Grant Elbow Lake 1-701-364-0431
Hennepin Minneapolis Adult 1-612-596-1223
Child 1-612-348-2233
Houston Caledonia 1-844-274-7472
Hubbard Park Rapids 1-800-422-0045
Isanti Cambridge 1-800-523-3333
Itasca Grand Rapids 1-218-326-8565
Jackson Jackson 1-800-642-1525
Kanabec Mora 1-800-523-3333
Kandiyohi Willmar 1-800-432-8781
Kittson Hallock 1-800-282-5005
Koochiching International Falls 1-800-442-8565
Lac Qui Parle Madison 1-800-432-8781
Lake Two Harbors 1-844-772-4724
Lake of the Woods Baudette 1-800-422-0045
LeSueur LeCenter 1-877-399-3040
Lincoln Ivanhoe 1-800-658-2429
Lyon Marshall 1-800-658-2429
Mahnomen Mahnomen 1-800-282-5005
Marshall Warren 1-800-282-5005
Martin Fairmont 1-877-399-3040
McLeod Glencoe 1-320-864-2713
Meeker Litchfield 1-800-432-8781
Mille Lacs Milaca 1-800-523-3333
Morrison Little Falls 1-800-462-5525
Mower Austin 1-844-274-7472
Murray Slayton 1-800-658-2429
Nicollet St. Peter 1-877-399-3040
Nobles Worthington 1-800-642-1525
Norman Ada 1-800-282-5005
Olmsted Rochester 1-844-274-7472
Otter Tail Fergus Falls 1-800-223-4512
Pennington Thief River Falls 1-800-282-5005
Pine Pine City 1-800-523-3333
Pipestone Pipestone 1-800-642-1525
Polk Crookston 1-800-282-5005
Pope Glenwood 1-701-364-0431
Ramsey St. Paul 1-651-266-7900
Red Lake Red Lake Falls 1-800-282-5005
Redwood Redwood Falls 1-800-658-2429
Renville Olivia 1-800-432-8781
Rice Faribault 1-877-399-3040
Rock Luverne 1-800-642-1525
Roseau Roseau 1-800-282-5005
Scott Shakopee 952-818-3702
Sherburne Elk River 1-800-635-8008
Sibley Gaylord 1-877-399-3040
St. Louis - Northern Eveleth/Virgnia 1-218-288-2100
St. Louis - Southern Duluth 1-218-623-1800
Stearns St. Cloud 1-800-635-8008
Steele Owatona 1-844-274-7472
Stevens Morris 1-701-364-0431
Swift Benson 1-800-432-8781
Todd Long Prairie 1-800-462-5525
Traverse Wheaton 1-701-364-0431
Wabasha Wabasha 1-844-274-7472
Wadena Wadena 1-800-462-5525
Waseca Waseca 1-844-274-7472
Washington Stillwater 1-651-275-7400
Watonwan St. James 1-877-399-3040
Wilkin Breckenridge 1-800-223-4512
Winona Winona 1-844-274-7472
Wright Buffalo 1-800-635-8008
Yellow Medicine Granite Falls 1-800-658-2429
Updated 1-2-2019

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Children's mental health crisis response phone numbers

Post by greybeard58 » Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:45 pm

Children's mental health crisis response phone numbers
adult phone numbers are in the previous post

Tribe County Seat/Large City Phone Numbers
Fond du Lac Fond du Lac 911
Leech Lake Cass Lake 911
Red Lake Band Red Lake 911
White Earth White Earth 1- 877-380-3621
County County Seat/Large City Phone Numbers
Aitkin Aitkin 1-800-462-5525
Anoka Anoka 1-763-755-3801
Becker Detroit Lakes 1-218-850-HELP(4357)
Beltrami Bemidji 1-800-422-0045
Benton Foley 1-800-635-8008
Big Stone Ortonville 1-800-432-8781
Blue Earth Mankato 1-877-399-3040
Brown New Ulm 1-877-399-3040
Carlton Carlton 1-844-772-4724
Carver Chaska 1-952-442-7601
Cass Walker 1-800-462-5525
Chippewa Montevideo 1-800-432-8781
Chisago Center City 1-800-523-3333
Clay Moorhead 1-800-223-4512
Clearwater Bagley 1-800-422-0045
Cook Grand Marais 1-844-772-4724
Cottonwood Windom 1-800-642-1525
Crow Wing Brainerd 1-800-462-5525
Dakota Hastings 1-952-891-7171
Dodge Mantorville 1-844-274-7472
Douglas Alexandria 1-701-364-0431
Faribault Blue Earth 1-877-399-3040
Fillmore Preston 1-844-274-7472
Freeborn Albert Lea 1-877-399-3040
Goodhue Red Wing 1-844-274-7472
Grant Elbow Lake 1-701-364-0431
Hennepin Minneapolis Adult 1-612-596-1223
Child 1-612-348-2233
Houston Caledonia 1-844-274-7472
Hubbard Park Rapids 1-800-422-0045
Isanti Cambridge 1-800-523-3333
Itasca Grand Rapids 1-218-326-8565
Jackson Jackson 1-800-642-1525
Kanabec Mora 1-800-523-3333
Kandiyohi Willmar 1-800-432-8781
Kittson Hallock 1-800-282-5005
Koochiching International Falls 1-800-442-8565
Lac Qui Parle Madison 1-800-432-8781
Lake Two Harbors 1-844-772-4724
Lake of the Woods Baudette 1-800-422-0045
LeSueur LeCenter 1-877-399-3040
Lincoln Ivanhoe 1-800-658-2429
Lyon Marshall 1-800-658-2429
Mahnomen Mahnomen 1-800-282-5005
Marshall Warren 1-800-282-5005
Martin Fairmont 1-877-399-3040
McLeod Glencoe 1-320-864-2713
Meeker Litchfield 1-800-432-8781
Mille Lacs Milaca 1-800-523-3333
Morrison Little Falls 1-800-462-5525
Mower Austin 1-844-274-7472
Murray Slayton 1-800-658-2429
Nicollet St. Peter 1-877-399-3040
Nobles Worthington 1-800-642-1525
Norman Ada 1-800-282-5005
Olmsted Rochester 1-844-274-7472
Otter Tail Fergus Falls 1-800-223-4512
Pennington Thief River Falls 1-800-282-5005
Pine Pine City 1-800-523-3333
Pipestone Pipestone 1-800-642-1525
Polk Crookston 1-800-282-5005
Pope Glenwood 1-701-364-0431
Ramsey St. Paul 1-651-266-7878
Red Lake Red Lake Falls 1-800-282-5005
Redwood Redwood Falls 1-800-658-2429
Renville Olivia 1-800-432-8781
Rice Faribault 1-877-399-3040
Rock Luverne 1-800-642-1525
Roseau Roseau 1-800-282-5005
Scott Shakopee 952-818-3702
Sherburne Elk River 1-800-635-8008
Sibley Gaylord 1-877-399-3040
St. Louis - Northern Eveleth/Virgnia 1-218-288-2100
St. Louis - Southern Duluth 1-218-623-1800
Stearns St. Cloud 1-800-635-8008
Steele Owatona 1-844-274-7472
Stevens Morris 1-701-364-0431
Swift Benson 1-800-432-8781
Todd Long Prairie 1-800-462-5525
Traverse Wheaton 1-701-364-0431
Wabasha Wabasha 1-844-274-7472
Wadena Wadena 1-800-462-5525
Waseca Waseca 1-844-274-7472
Washington Stillwater 1-651-275-7400
Watonwan St. James 1-877-399-3040
Wilkin Breckenridge 1-800-223-4512
Winona Winona 1-844-274-7472
Wright Buffalo 1-800-635-8008
Yellow Medicine Granite Falls 1-800-658-2429
Updated 1-17-2019

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

teen-athletes-suicide London Bruns

Post by greybeard58 » Fri Dec 18, 2020 1:53 am

The sounds in her home can become unbearable some days. Heather Wendling will sometimes hear the footsteps of her sons walking in the dining room and think it’s her daughter. She will hear the front door creak when her husband comes home after work and wonder if it’s her daughter. She will hear the phone ring and know it’s not her daughter, but perhaps another friend or volleyball parent calling to offer condolences or help.
When it all becomes too much, Wendling will sometimes head out to the backyard and sit on the swing set her daughter, London, used to play on as a little girl. “You can feel her energy there,” Wendling said, and when she is rocking back and forth, she wrestles with the questions of how London could have taken her own life at her home in Ridgefield, Wash., in the early morning hours of Sept. 21. She was 13 years old.
London had shown no signs of depression or suicidal thoughts in the weeks leading up to her death, Wendling said, but like so many teens during the coronavirus pandemic, her life had radically changed in the previous six months. She had shifted to online learning when her school district shut down in-person classes, and her social life had faded even more when her volleyball club canceled the season because of the pandemic.
“We’re living in unprecedented times. I never thought this would happen to my daughter. We fought so hard to give her a good life. We tried to do everything right,” Wendling said. “Their world has come to a screeching halt, a lot of them. They’re not in sports, they’re not going to school, they’re not hanging out with the friends. … We found out too late, and I don’t want other parents to find out too late.”

Youth suicide was already at a record high before the pandemic — with increases among teens every year from 2007 to 2017, it is the second-leading cause of death among high-school-aged students — and some researchers fear the mental health consequences of coronavirus restrictions on not only schools, but also sports, could help elevate those numbers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a survey recently asking young adults whether they had thought about killing themselves in the past 30 days; 1 of 4 said they had.
For many teens who have been restricted from playing sports, the pandemic has not only stripped away the opportunity for exercise, competition and potential college scholarships — but also has deprived those young athletes of the identity and social circles provided by sports. The mental health benefits that athletics can give students have been a driving force for thousands of parents who have protested the shutdown of sports in their communities across the country, with many often fearing the worst if their kids aren’t able to play.
Suicides among teen athletes have rocked several youth programs since the pandemic began in March, leaving parents and coaches scrambling — often from a distance — to help grieving kids in hopes of preventing more tragedies.
[For months, he helped his son keep suicidal thoughts at bay. Then came the pandemic.]
In the days after London’s death, volleyball teams from around the country rallied in support — youth players in states that were allowed to play inked her initials and her No. 15 on their hands during games. A coach from Michigan reached out to London’s coaches to say he had gone through a similar tragedy. A team from Oregon sent volleyballs signed with inspirational messages and slogans, including, “Stop the Stigma” and “Talk About it.”
“It’s important for us as adults, when working with these kids, to really be asking them questions and see what kind of support they need,” said Hillary DeVore, one of London’s coaches with Excel Northwest volleyball. “London’s story isn’t the first story that this has happened.”

‘The world was taken away from her’
A survey of high school athletes conducted by the University of Wisconsin this summer found that approximately 68 percent of the 3,243 teens polled have reported feelings of anxiety and depression at levels that typically require medical intervention — nearly 40 percent higher than past studies. The study, which also found that physical activity levels were 50 percent lower for kids than before the pandemic, was labeled “striking and concerning” by one researcher.
The lead researcher of the study at Wisconsin, Tim McGuine, said in an interview in August that “the greatest risk [to student-athletes] is not covid-19. It’s suicide and drug use.” The study caught the eye of the organization overseeing high school sports, the National Federation of State High School Associations, which was already dealing with an uptick in reports from state athletic directors about mental health concerns for teen athletes whose seasons were in flux.
The backyard playground of John Bruns and Heather Wendling at their home in Ridgefield, Wash. (Liz Moughon for The Washington Post)
“We already knew going into this that we had increasing levels of depression and anxiety among young people … but now we have kids that don’t have school, they don’t have sports,” said Michael Koester, who leads the medical advisory committee for the NFHS. “Many of us are concerned with that. Obviously, there’s concerns about the virus, contracting it and passing it on to others. But this isn’t a zero-sum game.”
Across the country, suicides of teen athletes have been reported since the pandemic started. In Stockton, Calif., 15-year-old Jo’Vianni Smith, a budding track and softball prospect, took her own life in April. Her mother, Danielle Hunt, told local media that the state’s shutdown had been difficult on her daughter. “The world was taken away from her, when she couldn’t do sports,” Hunt said. In Brunswick, Maine, the parents of a high school football player who took his own life this month cited the pandemic as a factor affecting their son’s mental health.

London Bruns attended View Ridge Middle School, which has held virtual classes during the pandemic. (Liz Moughon for The Washington Post)
Concerns over mental health have driven protests over the shutdown of sports throughout the country since the beginning of the pandemic. In New Mexico, after the state government canceled fall sports in October, a protester picketing at a local library held up a sign that read: “Stop Suicide and Depression In Teens. Allow Sports.”

In North Dakota, as parents and athletes protested the postponement of the winter high school sports season in November, Grand Forks-based sports psychologist Erin Haugen continued to see a flood of referrals for teen athletes across the state who were struggling with mental health because of restrictions on sports.
“It’s certainly complicated in both directions, because not playing can have mental health implications,” Haugen said. “But then also playing with that uncertainty, or having one of their teammates get ill, or they’re getting ill, certainly has mental health implications as well. ... It might be hard to find the best option from a mental health perspective.”
Teens who tie their identity and social circle to sports have been disrupted, which causes “higher risk of challenging psychological and emotional functions,” Haugen said, adding that the uncertainty around when sports will be played has functioned almost like an injury. But unlike a traditional injury that keeps an athlete from the field, a course for rehabilitation cannot be charted to navigate the pandemic.
The cancellation of the club volleyball season heightened London Bruns’s feelings of isolation. (Liz Moughon for The Washington Post)
“I would characterize this as a crisis,” said Adela Roxas, a sports psychologist in Virginia Beach who works with middle school and high school athletes. “Not having the athletic participation is a loss. These losses have to be grieved. Grief is also a part of coping through the pandemic, grieving what we lost and what we’re not able to do in this situation. … There’s definitely been an increase in symptoms.”
A growing number of youth coaches are also seeking help to better understand how to detect signs of depression and anxiety in their athletes, according to David Martin, a Hall of Fame high school coach from Tennessee who works with the Jason Foundation, one of the country’s largest suicide prevention organizations. It is named after Jason Flatt, a former player under Martin who died by suicide in 1997.
“This pandemic has created isolation. It decreased connection with those athletes, which obviously … is creating more mental health issues,” Martin said. “That decreased connection has placed an emphasis with coaches [and] administrators to more closely monitor the mental health of these young people. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

‘She had been struggling’
Even after she suffered a season-ending ankle injury last year, London still attended every practice and game with her club volleyball team. She yearned to be around her teammates. With her foot in a protective boot, she brought a cushy camping chair and helped the coaches keep stats and retrieve balls.
“She had a great time with her volleyball team, and she loved her coach,” said her father, John Bruns, who practiced with London in the backyard near the swing set. “She seemed to really get into it. I’m 6-foot-6, so she got all of my height. She was tall and slender, and would have made a heck of a good volleyball player over time.”

Her final day began with a request: London had asked her mother to prepare her favorite meal, fettuccine Alfredo.
They went shopping for the ingredients, first stopping at a Starbucks to get London’s favorite drink, an iced chai tea, and before they checked out at the grocery store, Wendling knew London needed to grab a gallon-size box of Goldfish crackers, like she always did. When London instead grabbed a little bag of the snack, telling her mom she didn’t need that many this time, Wendling thought nothing of it.
Before the drive home, London had mentioned how she loved Halloween — “As if she was going to miss it,” Wendling said, and she continued to replay their conversations in her head in the days and weeks after her death, searching for clues that might help explain her daughter’s death.

“She just left that she was struggling. That’s all she left in her note,” Heather said. “She just let us know that she loved us and that we didn’t do anything wrong. But she had been struggling and felt like it was her time.”
A week before London’s death, Wendling had asked London whether she had kept in touch with her volleyball teammates since the pandemic started; London had told her that they “had drifted apart,” Wendling said, adding that London had not told her best friend about her plan. Wendling believes isolation may have taken a mental toll on her daughter, just as it has on teens across the country over the past nine months as schools and sports have been leveled by shutdowns and uncertainty.

The Excel Northwest coaches had worked in the days after London’s death to reach out to their players, even though they had not been together in months. They worked to openly talk about feelings and helped them talk to other friends and family, and they held open gyms when restrictions were eased to get the girls out of the house. That wasn’t an option after shutdowns of indoor sports in Washington were imposed again last month.
“It is going to be really challenging for kids to work through this. … These kids just got thrown into it,” DeVore said. “Volleyball was the one thing that they had control over, and they got to go and make their own decisions on the court. We hope we can have some sort of safe season, where the girls are practicing at least. But we also want to make sure that our communities stay safe.”

‘She was just a beautiful little light’
A few weeks after her daughter’s death, Wendling had heard one of London’s friends was suicidal. She had the girl and her parent over to the house. She told the girl how much pain she was in, that the teen needed to consider the agony in her voice. A couple of days later, Wendling spent more time with the girl so she wouldn’t feel so isolated.
“I’ve talked to other parents who have lost kids to suicide as well,” she said. “We’re part of a club nobody wants to be a part of.”
She is reminded daily of the lives her daughter touched, and she smiles about some of the last memories they shared together, including on a volleyball trip to Seattle, when London was still injured but attended to support her teammates anyway. They went shopping and ate at restaurants together that weekend. Her volleyball club has started a scholarship and has talked about getting together to honor her memory when it is safe to do so, DeVore said.

“I remember at the beginning of [last] season, her dad pulling us aside and just expressing how thankful he was that we were working with her. … You could tell how much she enjoyed being around this group of people,” DeVore said. “It was a beautiful thing to see.”
Bruns’s job as a manufacturing representative in the utility industry can be relentless — but every fall Saturday he would take London to a sports bar down the road in Ridgefield so they could spend father-daughter time together watching college football.

Since London’s death, Wendling and their sons have gone to watch several games with him instead, and at the first one, everyone in the bar raised a glass in London’s memory. As a family, they often share memories of London. They tell stories about her catching frogs on their five acres, about how talented of an artist she was, about how much she loved volleyball. In the living room of their home, they keep a trunk full of keepsakes — London’s favorite stuffed animal, a sweatshirt that still carries her scent, her volleyball uniform and knee pads.
“She was just a beautiful little light. … We loved each other. She loved everybody,” said Wendling, who has committed herself to making sure that love endures.

In the backyard, near the swing set and near where London practiced volleyball, Wendling plans to build a memorial flower garden with 13 white hydrangeas — one for each year her daughter was alive.
If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255). You can also text a crisis counselor at 741741.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2 ... o_nav=true

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Higher base rate of invalid baseline testing performance in athletes

Post by greybeard58 » Thu Dec 31, 2020 8:29 am

Higher base rate of invalid baseline testing performance in athletes

Study finds that between 22.31% and 34.99% baseline evaluations using ImPACT are invalid when using independent measures of performance validity.

An updated review of the prevalence of invalid performance on the Immediate Post-Concussion and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT)
Read study at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... GQ.twitter

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

"the worst thing that can happen to a parent"

Post by greybeard58 » Sat Jan 02, 2021 3:29 pm

"the worst thing that can happen to a parent"

Mark Catlin warned that the phone reception from his rural home in Minnesota would be patchy, but his voice, softened by undertones of grief, penetrated the line. “It’s about the worst thing that can happen to a parent. It’s been the worst time of my life.”

In March last year, Mark’s daughter, Kelly Catlin, who won a silver medal in the US women’s pursuit cycling team at the 2016 Rio Olympics, took her own life at her Stanford University apartment, two months after suffering a concussion in training. She was 23.

Kelly’s first suicide attempt was at the end of January 2019, just a month after suffering a major head trauma while on a steep descent during a training ride in California. She had carefully planned it out, having written a chilling goodbye email to her family.

There had been no signs Kelly was spiraling into depression or having suicidal thoughts. After the crash, she threw herself back into training almost immediately. She craved routine and normality, but was tormented by memory loss and lapses in concentration, while emotional distress and outbursts of anger consumed her.

“She thought these mental changes she was having were permanent,” her father Mark tells Telegraph Women’s Sport, in his first interview with a British newspaper since Kelly’s death.

“She thought her inability to train was permanent. She didn’t think she could live up to expectations of her team-mates and the Olympic team.

“She felt trapped by these expectations and didn’t know how to get out of those, even though everyone tried to say, ‘Kelly, we just want you alive.’ We tried to cut her loose so she could really find herself, but evidently couldn’t do that somehow.”

Mark wanted to share his experience because there is a haunting cautionary tale to his daughter’s story: concussion claims lives.

Tony Soutter is another father who is now all too aware of the dangers of repetitive head injuries, which can lead to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the neurodegenerative disease regularly associated with boxers and American footballers.

Tony’s daughter Ellie was a promising GB snowboarder, winning bronze at the 2017 European Youth Olympic Winter Festival, who took her own life on her 18th birthday in July 2018, near her French home in Les Gets.

Ellie had miraculously survived a horrific accident three months earlier, face-planting into ice at high speed on a mountainside in Avoriaz, near Geneva. Such was the severity of the incident that she could have been placed into an induced coma – paramedics lost her pulse twice – but she woke up in the merciless clutches of concussion.

CTE can only be diagnosed after death and because Ellie was cremated within seven days of dying in compliance with French burial laws, there is no definitive evidence she actually had the condition. “I realised she had every one of the symptoms and more for CTE,” explains Tony.

“Quite possibly, because she was very young and because she was female, it probably exacerbated it. They’re now saying head trauma affects females more than it affects males.”

Numerous studies have shown women are more susceptible to concussion than men, their recovery times longer and post-concussion symptoms more pronounced. Kelly’s national team-mate Chloe Dygert took nearly a year to recover from a concussion she sustained in May 2018, which she said changed her personality.

Kelly, a triplet who loved horses and once tried to petition her parents and the city council for permission to keep a miniature horse in the garage, had hinted at the mental turmoil enveloping her in a post on the American cycling website, VeloNews, shortly after being prematurely released from a psychiatric ward after her first suicide attempt.

“Her death was a really complicated combination of her personality, overtraining and concussion and also social isolation,” Mark said. “We don’t know which one was the most important. Concussion was a new element and we think it played perhaps the most important role because she wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Kelly’s brain was donated to the Veterans Affairs-Boston University-Concussion Legacy Foundation Brain Bank, a renowned centre for research into CTE and other brain injuries. “It might help others with the decision to donate brains for this kind of study, but not so much for our own knowledge or closure,” concedes Mark, a retired pathologist.

“There was evidence that was consistent with a concussion, but there wasn’t anything dramatic really. This is often the case with concussions. You don’t see much. It’s at a kind of microcellular level that the damage is done.”

The same brain bank also contacted Soutter in the days following the death of Ellie, whose crash in Avoriaz was not the only time she suffered a head trauma. Aged 13, Ellie walked in front of a car in Les Gets while texting on her phone to suffer her first concussion.

As a result, she temporarily lost her sight during a tutor session, was plagued by headaches, her behaviour changed over time and she experienced depression and anxiety. Tony openly acknowledges his ignorance of accumulative head traumas, but still took Ellie for a second CT scan in Grenoble three months after her major concussion to ensure everything was in order.

“I should have gone to a specialist with all the previous information, all the dates, concussion times, recovery lengths, put it down on paper and said, ‘Is this normal?’ ” he says. “If the neurologists in Grenoble had known her previous concussion history, they would have said: ‘You need to stop this sport straight away.’

Both Mark and Tony agree there is an increased need for the management of concussed athletes, which includes vigorously adhering to post-concussion protocols. “You have to have some kind of enforcement,” Mark said. “Kelly ignored the protocol really. She went right back to training – the world championships were coming up – and that was about the worst thing she could do.”

Should neurological baseline testing, which assesses athletes’ cognitive brain function when they are in their peak condition, be made mandatory in sport where there is the potential of head injury trauma? “It would be a good idea,” Mark added. “The club that Kelly trained with has instituted that for all the people in the cycling club at North Star Development. They have baseline testing for all their cyclists now.”

The Ellie Soutter Foundation, established in Ellie’s memory so young athletes from less privileged backgrounds can be supported financially and through the pressures of professional competition, is currently offering support to four snowsport athletes at a time when it is arguably needed more than ever.

The foundation has also been lobbying for baseline concussion testing and is due to hold a well-being conference in France next October. Since Ellie’s death, GB Snowsport has made baseline concussion testing mandatory for all athletes on its world-class programme.

Tony will not give up in his fight to make others aware of the harrowing impact of head traumas in sport.

“It gives me some reason,” he says. “The proof is there: children and adults die from concussion. It’s absolutely conclusive that concussion kills people, or makes them extremely ill when they’re older if it doesn’t kill them.”


Concussion can kill: ‘It is about the worst thing that can happen to a parent’
Read more: http://www.samfordcrimson.com/20201127- ... arent.html

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Brain injuries from concussions still evident decades later

Post by greybeard58 » Sat Jan 09, 2021 4:56 pm

Brain injuries from concussions still evident decades later

Concussions are the most common form of mild brain injury, affecting over 42 million people worldwide annually. Their long-term risks — especially for athletes and members of the military — are well documented, with studies showing possible connections to neurodegenerative conditions like chronic traumatic encephalopathy and Alzheimer’s disease.

The immediate effects of a concussion are well known, such as alterations in the brain’s structure and activity seen soon after injury. In addition to symptoms like headaches and light sensitivity, a concussion often causes difficulty concentrating or trouble processing new information that can linger for a few weeks before clearing up. But less is understood about how a concussion from earlier in our lives can impact the brain and cognitive health as we age.

To explore the long-term effects of mild brain injuries, researchers led by members of the Brain Aging and Behavior Section of the NIA Intramural Research Program (IRP) tracked MRI and PET brain scan data over time from 51 older adult participants in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging who had a concussion about 20 years earlier and compared results to 150 participants with no concussion. The research team also compared long-term results from neuropsychological tests for both groups to detect any changes in cognitive performance over time.

Brain imaging showed that concussed participants had more noticeable levels of white matter damage in their frontal lobes, temporal lobes, and hippocampus at their first study scan, and this damage remained across follow-up visits. The researchers also detected differences in brain activity, also seen in their frontal and temporal lobes, as was brain tissue loss or atrophy of the temporal lobes.

Cognitively, there were no significant differences in test performance between concussed and non-concussed groups. Researchers were unsure if this could be evidence that the brain was able to compensate and adapt to the damage from a decades-earlier concussion to maintain cognitive performance, but they hope to further explore this question in future studies.

The researchers noted that previously concussed research participants may want to be alert for new cognitive changes because the parts of the brain damaged by concussions — the frontal and temporal lobes — are vulnerable to age-based changes connected to Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Next, the team wants to better understand the apparent lack of cognitive issues to see if it is due to a resilience factor, or if the brains of people who had mild concussions are able to adapt work-arounds to compensate for the damage.

Brain injuries from concussions still evident decades later
Read more: https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/brain-inju ... ades-later

This study was funded by the NIA Intramural Research Program. Reference: Beason-Held L, et al. Lasting consequences of concussion on the aging brain: Findings from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. NeuroImage. 2020;221:117182. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117182.

Lasting consequences of concussion on the aging brain: Findings from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging
Read the study at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32702483/

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Long-Term Influence of Concussion on Cardio-Autonomic Function in Adolescent Hockey Players

Post by greybeard58 » Thu Jan 14, 2021 2:41 pm

Long-Term Influence of Concussion on Cardio-Autonomic Function in Adolescent Hockey Players

Concussion may negatively influence cardiovascular function and the autonomic nervous system, defined by alteration in heart rate variability (HRV). Differences in HRV most commonly emerge during a physical challenge, such as the final steps of the return-to-sport progression. Findings suggest that those with more than 1 previous concussion may be associated with a greater risk for long-term dysautonomia. Future use of HRV may provide clinicians with objective guidelines for concussion-management and safe return-to-participation protocols.

Long-Term Influence of Concussion on Cardio-Autonomic Function in Adolescent Hockey Players
Read more: https://www.physiciansweekly.com/long-t ... y-players/

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Head Impacts in young athletes associated with white matter changes

Post by greybeard58 » Sun Jan 17, 2021 12:26 pm

Head Impacts in young athletes associated with white matter changes

New study: Cumulative contact sport exposure to repetitive head impacts (RHI), but not diagnosed concussions, is associated with subtle differences in white matter microstructure in the brains of young active athletes.

Association of Head Impact Exposure with White Matter Macro- and Microstructure Metrics
Read study at: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/neu.2020.7376

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Playing three players short due to a concussion, quarantine and injury

Post by greybeard58 » Thu Jan 21, 2021 4:32 pm

Playing three players short due to a concussion, quarantine and injury

Devils Lake goaltender Molly Black's save percentage ranks with the best in the state. And on Dec. 29 it actually improved to .941.
However, Black, a senior, found herself on the losing end again, dropping a 2-1 decision to Mandan at the Starion Sports Complex while stopping 42 of 44 shots. So her statistics line looks like a misprint -- 3.00 goals-allowed average, .941 save percentage and an 0-5 record.

"She's been their goalie for five years, four for sure. She's a premier goalie," Mandan head girls hockey coach Ben Hertz said.

Goals were at a premium on Dec. 29 with Mandan holding a 1-0 lead until a wild 11th-hour conclusion.

Mandan's Maci Berg, a sophomore defenseman, scored with 76 seconds to play on a 2-on-0 breakaway, converting a nifty pass from freshman forward Kenlee Edland who head-manned the puck.

Jayli Wandler, Mandan's junior goalie, lost her shutout bid with 25 seconds to play when Devils Lake senior forward Hannah Houle poked in a rebound.

That goal irked Hertz.

"There was a scrum in front and we gave up a goal. That's not the way the game is played. We're a young team and we lost track of where we were for a little while," he said.

Devils Lake coach Rob McIvor pulled Black at that point, but Wandler fended off a shot by Ashlynn Abrahamson, which proved to be the final attempt of the game.

Berg scored the game's first goal at 4:57 of the second period, charging in from the neutral zone and beating Black low to her stick side on a blast from the top of the slot.

Berg's second goal, which proved to be the game-winner, was a thing of beauty, set up by a precision pass from Edland. The play began with the Braves breaking out of their own end.

"(Edland) took off and had pressure on her. She saw me open and passed ahead to me, and I got a breakaway," Berg said.

Again, Berg scored low to the left side of the net.

Mandan thoroughly dominated the first two periods with wide territorial and shot advantages. Through two periods the Braves had outshot the Firebirds 34-7.

Devils Lake, which has only five players from the top three grades, sprang to life in the third period, challenging Wandler with eight shots.

Protecting a 1-0 lead, Wandler survived a three-shot flurry that ended with 4:44 to play. The Firebirds had only three shots on net the rest of the way.

Berg said Black can give an opposing team fits.

"She's really good with her glove. It's really hard to get a puck past her," Berg observed.

Mandan, which was playing three players short due to a concussion, quarantine and injury, upped its record to 3-2-0-1 with the win, good enough for seven points in the statewide standings. The two setbacks were a sudden-death overtime loss to Bismarck and a 4-3 loss to Fargo Davies. Between those two losses, the Braves defeated Williston 4-1 and Dickinson 8-0.

"We're just a couple of mistakes from being undefeated," Hertz noted. "We've played good team hockey. We've moved the puck pretty well, and the effort and determination of the girls has made a big difference."

Hertz said playing three one-goal games in the first two weeks of the season has enhanced his team's development.

"One hundred percent. From just the sheer confidence that they can compete, and contending for the whole three periods," he noted.

Berg's two goals give Mandan girls its third win
Read more: https://bismarcktribune.com/community/m ... 9c56d.html

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Tomorrow is Bell Let’s Talk Day!

Post by greybeard58 » Thu Jan 28, 2021 10:25 am

Tomorrow is Bell Let’s Talk Day!

Montréal, Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Now more than ever, every action counts and you can add your voice to the world’s biggest conversation about mental health on Bell Let’s Talk Day, January 28.

With the challenges we’ve all faced over the last year, taking every action to drive progress in mental health in our communities is of critical importance. This year’s nationwide Bell Let’s Talk Day multimedia campaign highlights the actions we can all take to drive mental health forward and create positive change. Whether you’re staying virtually connected with a family member, working directly with patients in recovery, investing in access to care or even just taking care of your own mental health, every Canadian can play a part in their communities, workplaces, schools and at home.

Bell Let’s Talk Day 2020 set a new single-day record with 154,387,425 messages across all platforms, growing Bell’s funding for mental health by an additional $7,719,371.25. This year, by joining the conversation, you can take action to create positive change and drive Bell’s donation to Canadian mental health programs.

When it comes to mental health, now more than ever, every action counts.

On Bell Let’s Talk Day, let’s make every one of these actions count:

On Bell Let’s Talk Day Canadians everywhere will join in the global mental health conversation. You can use a wide range of communications platforms to join in – and directly drive Bell’s donations to Canadian mental health programs simply by participating.

On Bell Let’s Talk Day, Bell donates 5 cents to Canadian mental health programs for every applicable text, local or long distance call, tweet or TikTok video using #BellLetsTalk, every Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube view of the Bell Let’s Talk Day video, and every use of the Bell Let’s Talk Facebook frame or Snapchat filter. All at no cost to participants beyond what they would normally pay their service provider for online or phone access.

To learn more about the campaign and to download items from our online toolkit, please click here.

Thank you for your support!

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"Never think it is going to happen to you"

Post by greybeard58 » Thu Jan 28, 2021 9:41 pm

"Never think it is going to happen to you"

This week’s episode features Alley Goudreau. Alley is a former U-Sports hockey player and HeadsupCAN Concussion Awareness Advocate who shares with us her experiences suffering a concussion as a student athlete at St. Francis Xavier. During her experience she was affected by the lack of awareness and stigma surrounding brain injuries and this ultimately fueled her passion to dedicate her honours thesis on Mental Health in varsity athletes and it’s correlation to brain injuries. Alley is currently applying for her Masters in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on TBI research and is a tremendous advocate for concussion awareness. She is passionate about making a difference in the world and hopes her work can pioneer a new way of looking at athletes that suffer a brain injury.

This podcast is produced by HeadsupCAN. The Headsup Concussion Advocacy Network is a NonProfit organization based in Canada, that aims to Challenge The Stigma surrounding concussions.

This organization brings awareness to concussions and mental health through diverse content creation in an effort to educate the masses on the severity of this "invisible" injury.

If you're interested in sharing your story and being a guest on this podcast reach, send an email to theinherentriskpodcast@gmail.com

To find on social platforms
Instagram - @theinherentrisk
Twitter - @RiskInherent

To learn more about HeadsupCAN
Instagram - @headsupcan
Website - www.headsupcan.ca

The Inherent Risk Podcast #4 - Alley Goudreau
Watch this episode at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKE5Qru65tc

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Do you want to see better concussion education in sport?

Post by greybeard58 » Fri Jan 29, 2021 1:06 pm

Do you want to see better concussion education in sport? Have your say here:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/Response ... VFTzMzWi4u

"How to explain the invisible?"
This survey is part of the "Get your head in the game - Sports Concussion Awareness & Training (SCAT)" Erasmus+ funded project.

The main aim of the project is to provide an in depth understanding of the definition and implications of concussion in a sport and exercise setting.

This survey consists of 3 sections, taking approximately 10 minutes to complete. By taking part in this survey you will add to the development of the "How to explain the invisible?" Training Guide. This training guide will be developed to equip VET educators with the knowledge and competencies required to deliver concussion specific training.

Honesty of answers is integral to this research and will improve study outcomes. All questionnaire data are anonymous.

Privacy Statement: By completing this survey, you understand the nature and purpose of this survey and consent to your data being used in the project named above. You understand that, while information gained in completing this survey may be published, you will NOT be identified and the data will not be used for any purpose other than this research. Your email address is obtained for forwarding on the intervention, post-intervention survey and follow-up survey only.

For more information on the project or if you like to be involved in any of the free events happening across Europe as part of this project please visit: www.concussioninsport.eu

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Open, unscripted and genuine message about her own concussion experience

Post by greybeard58 » Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:30 pm

Open, unscripted and genuine message about her own concussion experience

Did you know? It's Concussion Awareness Week!

Tanner Gates and the Colgate Women’s Hockey team have partnered with
Headway Foundation

to raise awareness and commit to the New Tough pact.
Watch the video clip at: https://mobile.twitter.com/ColgateWIH/s ... 7103305728

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Mild hits to the head may damage the tiny lymphatic vessels that clear toxic chemicals and cellular debris from the brai

Post by greybeard58 » Wed Feb 03, 2021 12:49 pm

Mild hits to the head may damage the tiny lymphatic vessels that clear toxic chemicals and cellular debris from the brain

On a crisp September day, Zoe Aldrich walked onto a rugby pitch on a college campus in upstate New York. With her teammates surrounding her, she got ready for the kickoff and the pitch became a blur of colored jerseys. A teammate passed Aldrich the ball and she started running, but an opposing player tackled her to the ground. Players collided above her, competing for the ball. As Aldrich tried to crawl out from under them, one of her teammates accidentally kicked her in the head. “I never lost consciousness,” she says, “but I didn’t feel well.”

Trainers diagnosed her with a concussion, and for the next year and a half, Aldrich suffered from a feeling of fogginess, like her brain wasn’t working correctly. People told her she would feel better in two weeks, then four, then six. Eventually, she says, “I had to give up on this notion that I had to wait a certain number of weeks and then things would go back to normal.”

Each year in the United States, there are around 3.8 million concussions, and sports- and recreation-related activities are responsible for a significant number of them. Most patients experience symptoms similar to Aldrich’s — headaches, nausea, fatigue, dizziness and memory loss. There is no single test to diagnose a concussion; instead, doctors examine balance, coordination, ability to pay attention, and memory. If the symptoms are severe, they’ll also conduct brain scans to check for swelling or bleeding.

For around 80 percent of patients, symptoms go away within two weeks. But others, like Aldrich, experience symptoms for months or even years. A history of multiple concussions may increase the risk of more serious problems later in life, including Alzheimer’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a neurodegenerative disorder with dementia-like symptoms.

Although it’s clear that concussions damage the brain, exactly how they do so is still largely a mystery — especially when it comes to long-term problems. An intriguing new clue focuses on tiny tubes sandwiched between the meninges, a set of membranes that surrounds and protects the brain and spinal cord. These tubes, called meningeal lymphatic vessels, help to clear cellular and molecular waste from the brain. A mouse study published in September in the journal Nature Communications reported that after minor blows to the head, the brain swells and pins these vessels up against the skull. Like putting a kink in a hose, this diminishes their ability to drain properly.

This damaged drainage system, the researchers speculate, may be what leads to more severe and longer-lasting symptoms.

“We know that most of the time, a concussion is a limited process; most people recover and don’t have long-term effects,” says Ann McKee, a neuropathologist who directs Boston University’s CTE Center and was not involved in the study. But in autopsies of people who had suffered from CTE during their life, McKee has found scarring in the meninges. “The idea that meningeal lymphatic channels may contribute to inflammation and persistent symptoms, I think, is a very interesting idea — it makes a lot of sense to me.”

The brain’s trash collection system

The existence of lymphatic vessels surrounding the brain was confirmed only recently — in 2015 — but scientists have long known that they exist elsewhere in the body, mingled among the veins and arteries that supply oxygen and nutrients to tissues and organs. This network of tiny, thin-walled tubes acts as the body’s molecular trash collection system. The vessels collect the clear fluid called lymph that leaks from the bloodstream — filled with immune cells as well as proteins and molecular debris. These are transported to lymph nodes, small structures throughout the body that filter out the harmful waste.

In the eighteenth century, Italian physician Paolo Mascagni created a detailed atlas of the lymphatic system and depicted these vessels in the meninges around the brain. But other scientists dismissed the idea, arguing that the lymphatic system was completely separate from the central nervous system. That remained the consensus for more than 200 years.

Then, in 1996, scientists looking at brain tissue with an electron microscope discovered structures in the meninges that looked like lymphatic vessels. Other researchers still weren’t convinced, writing off the tubes as capillaries, which are also thin-walled vessels. Finally, in 2015, neuroimmunologist Jonathan Kipnis, now at Washington University in St. Louis, and his former colleagues at the University of Virginia examined the brains of mice and uncovered a web of channels that resembled the lymphatic vessels found in the rest of the body.

To confirm that the tubes were not blood vessels, the scientists sacrificed the mice and removed their meninges, which they then stained with fluorescent molecules that bind to lymphatic cells, revealing meningeal lymphatic vessels. These vessels, which have since been found in other animals, including people and other primates, drain waste from the brain to a set of lymph nodes located next to the jugular vein in the neck.

Before this discovery, scientists weren’t sure how the brain disposed of waste after an injury. Following a significant hit to the head, brain cells die, releasing molecules that initiate inflammation and signal the immune system to clean up the damage. Inflammation immediately after an injury can help in the recovery process. But animal studies have shown that a flawed immune response can lead to chronic inflammation, which ultimately causes more cell death, damage to the ability of neurons to communicate, and other long-lasting neurological issues.

Kipnis thinks that the brain’s waste pathway might play a role in degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, where cell-damaging molecules called amyloid-beta accumulate between neurons and are not properly cleared. Over the past five years, he and his team have discovered that damage to the lymphatic vessels in mice increases the accumulation of amyloid-beta in mouse brains.

Kinks in the cleanup system

Down the hall from Kipnis’s former lab at the University of Virginia was another team of researchers who, inspired by his work, began investigating whether lymphatic vessels play a role in concussions. Graduate student Ashley Bolte and immunologist John Lukens worked with mice to see whether a blow to the head affected the rodents’ lymphatic vessels.

After giving the mice a mild blow with a device that dropped a small metal rod on their heads, Bolte monitored their alertness, balance and reflexes and found that their behavior didn’t change. She then injected tiny fluorescent beads into the cerebrospinal fluid to measure bead flow through the meninges, lymphatic vessels and lymph nodes. By looking at the meninges and lymph nodes under a microscope, Bolte discovered that the lymphatic vessels’ ability to drain was significantly diminished starting just two hours after the injury and lasting up to two months. This suggests that even blows to the head that aren’t hard enough to cause symptoms can damage lymphatic vessels.

Recent studies have also shown that the drainage ability of lymphatic vessels worsens as mice age. If that’s also true in humans, it might be one reason older people have longer recovery times and increased mortality rates from concussions. To simulate the effects of aging, Bolte destroyed part of the vessels in some mice by injecting them with a light-activated drug and shooting a laser through their skulls before giving them a mild hit to the head. Then she tested the rodents’ balance and coordination by putting them on a rod that began to rotate slowly and gradually accelerated over a span of five minutes.

Mice whose lymphatic vessels had been damaged had worse balance and motor coordination than mice with a concussion alone, she found. This suggests that preexisting lymphatic damage worsens the symptoms of concussion, she says.

Another set of experiments revealed that lymphatic damage also worsens memory impairments in mice after a hit to the head. In a standard test of rodent memory, Bolte put mice in a room with two plastic boxes for 10 minutes. She then removed the mice and moved one of the boxes. When she returned the animals 24 hours later, mice without damaged lymphatic vessels spent more time examining the box that had moved — an indication they knew something had changed. Mice with lymphatic damage didn’t do this, suggesting that they could not remember where the boxes had been the day before.

These findings by Bolte and Lukens, reported in their recent Nature Communications paper, may apply to athletes with a history of multiple concussions, who likely have damaged lymphatic vessels that don’t have time to repair in between hits, Lukens says. The study “shows that even mild hits to the head can cause long-lasting ‘kinks’ in the lymphatic pathway,” he says. “Maybe one reason why repetitive traumatic brain injuries are so detrimental is that you have these kinks beforehand from smaller hits.”

Bolte and Lukens also began wondering if it might be possible to reduce the long-term impacts of concussions by fixing the faulty pipes. They knew that past studies in adult mice had reported that a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor C, or VEGF-C, can increase the diameter of lymphatic tubes and therefore enhance their ability to drain. And so the researchers introduced VEGF-C into the meninges of some old and some young mice and gave them a mild blow to the head two weeks later.

Following the concussions, the brains of old mice that hadn’t received VEGF-C had dangerously high levels of macrophages and microglia, cells that respond to an injury by removing damaged cells and molecular debris and can cause damage if left unchecked. But the old mice receiving VEGF-C had many fewer of these cells in their brains. To the scientists, this finding suggests that by promoting growth in the lymphatic vessels, VEGF-C improves drainage and reduces inflammation in the brain, thus decreasing the injury’s intensity. “The growth factor fixes the faulty pipes that drain all of the bad things from our brain,” Lukens says.

This finding opens up the possibility that athletes could be treated with VEGF-C after a concussion to reduce brain inflammation and long-term complications, Lukens adds. But the findings are preliminary, and VEGF-C treatment is yet to be tested in people with a concussion.

A new way of looking at concussions
Emerging research suggests that even mild hits to the head may damage the tiny lymphatic vessels that clear toxic chemicals and cellular debris from the brain
Read more: https://knowablemagazine.org/article/he ... oncussions

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Marketing the use of headgear in high contact sports

Post by greybeard58 » Sat Feb 06, 2021 1:02 pm

Marketing the use of headgear in high contact sports

An interesting new article on marketing headgear for use in high contact sports. "Commonly, individuals believe other sports, rather than their own, are more dangerous and have a higher risk of injuries (i.e., head injury).”

High contact sports have gained popularity among consumers, who often seek thrills and the feeling of invincibility by risking their well-being. One major health risk associated with these sports is head injuries, including trauma, concussion, and sleep disruption. In this research, we investigate the effect of consumers’ product choice difficulty on their health risk assessments. We illustrate a novel mediating route by documenting how and when choice maximization can help consumers make the optimal choice when faced with the many products available in the market. To aid their decisions, consumers require communication about the health benefits of the product (first-stage boundary condition) but not at the expense of reducing their game-playing enjoyment (second-stage boundary condition). The paper concludes with contributions to and implications for theory and practice and a research agenda to guide future inquiries in this under-researched area.

Marketing the use of headgear in high contact sports
Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 8920314156

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McKenna Horne concussion

Post by greybeard58 » Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:40 am

McKenna Horne concussion

Kenmore/Grand Island girls hockey head coach Jeff Orlowski enters every season with the same mantra.

"It's not about who wins the first game of the season," he said. "It's who wins the last."

Maybe that's part of why his squad has been one of the area's most accomplished programs.

In the first 10 seasons of the WNY Girls Varsity Ice Hockey Federation, Kenmore/Grand Island has captured five Section VI championships, one Federation playoff title and has been a two-time state finalist, in 2015 and again in 2016 — the first year Grand Island joined the existing Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda team.

KenGI finished in fifth place last year but put together its trademarked strong second half run and made it to the Section VI title game, where it fell to defending state champion Williamsville, 3-2 in overtime.

It was an impressive accomplishment for a young team.

But fate dealt KenGI a tough blow as it lost two core youngsters it had hoped to build around. Madison Flory moved to Massachusetts and sniper Tessa Morris transferred to Nichols School.

As the door opens on the 11th season of the Girls Fed, it's a much different landscape compared to previous season.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic delayed the start of the season by just over two months. This has resulted in a shortened, seven-game regular season where the eight teams will play each opponent once.

There will also be no Federation playoff round. Whichever team finishes in first place will be declared Federation playoff champ in the record books and earn a first round bye in the sectional playoffs.

A shortened season presents a challenge for KenGI as it means far less time for girls to learn and grow as players and people.

"It's gonna be a huge challenge," Orlowski said. "Usually when you have a young team you start off slow and you get moving toward the end of the year. That's usually 16-17 games in, now we got to do it in seven. So it's gonna make things very challenging.

"It's gonna put a lot of pressure on the girls that are returning. I'm gonna be counting on some of these brand new girls who have never played for us before."

KenGI lost two key players and team leaders with the graduation of GI's Abby Blair and Kaylynn Savoy. This year, it will have a total of eight girls in seventh or eighth grade, putting even more on the shoulders of returning vets like sophomore goalie Carolyn Bourgeault (Kenmore West) and Grand Island junior Molly Leggett, who will anchor the defense.

Returning eighth-grade forwards Isabelle Bourgeault and Savannah Samplinkski (GI) will have to answer the call to provide much of the offense. Maddie Marzec will also be a vital part of the defense. Marzec, who took part in a boys hockey camp during the off season, is noticeably stronger and quicker compared to last year.

While teams will obviously be trying to find success, there is also a greater sense of purpose to truly appreciate and cherish every moment.

"I'm just trying to keep the girls motivated," Leggett said. "And if they seem like they're (overwhelmed) with everything, I just tell them, 'Relax, it's just about fun. It's not about stress at all. We're just here to have fun.' That's what sports are all about."

That's also something Orlowski stresses each day.

"I do tell them that all the time, how fragile the season really is," he said.

KenGI will also be counting on senior forward McKenna Horne, who had to sit out the playoffs last year because of a concussion.

"She's itching to get going," Orlowski said.

KenGI girls hockey ready for shortened season
Read more: https://www.niagara-gazette.com/sports/ ... f2089.html

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A frank, unscripted reflection on her concussions

Post by greybeard58 » Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:54 pm

A frank, unscripted reflection on her concussions

Hear from Taylor Kirwan as she shares her experience during
Headway Foundation
's Concussion Awareness Week.

Watch the video at https://mobile.twitter.com/ColgateWIH/s ... 2956242946

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A single head injury can increase the risk of dementia, Penn study finds

Post by greybeard58 » Fri Mar 12, 2021 10:42 am

A single head injury can increase the risk of dementia, Penn study finds

Head injuries can be caused by a wide range of scenarios — from car crashes to sports collisions.

In the United States, more than 23 million adults age 40 or older have a history of head injuries in which they lost consciousness.

It is no secret that head injuries can have long-lasting effects. But new Penn Medicine research suggests a single head injury can increase the risk of developing dementia as much as 25 years later.

People who had one head injury were 1.25 times more likely to develop dementia compared to participants who never experienced a head injury. Experiencing two or more head injuries doubled the risk of dementia.

Overall, 9.5% of all dementia cases in the study population could be attributed to people who had at least one prior head injury.

"Head injury is a significant risk factor for dementia, but it's one that can be prevented," said lead investigator Dr. Andrea L.C. Schneider, a neurology professor at Penn. "Our findings show that the number of head injuries matter — more head injuries are associated with greater risk for dementia.

"The dose-dependence of this association suggests that prevention of head injury could mitigate some risk of dementia later in life. While head injury is not the only risk factor for dementia, it is one risk factor for dementia that is modifiable by behavior changes such as wearing helmets and seat belts."

The study also found a stronger association between head injury and dementia risk among women than men and among white people than Black people.

The researchers used data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study to analyze the associations between head injury and dementia over the span of 25 years. Earlier studies haven't included such a diverse population in a community-based setting.

The study was published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.

"Given the strong association of head injury with dementia, there is an important need for future research focused on prevention and intervention strategies aimed at reducing dementia after head injury," Schneider said.

The Mayo Clinic describes dementia as "a group of symptoms affecting memory, thinking and social abilities severe enough to interfere with your daily life."

The most common type of dementia is Alzheimer's disease. It begins with mild memory loss and eventually progresses to a point where people have difficulty holding conversations or responding to their environments.

An Independence Blue Cross report last winter found that diagnoses of early-onset dementia have been increasing substantially. The reasons aren't clear, but some experts say that advances in technology that allow for an earlier and more definitive diagnosis most likely is a factor.

A single head injury can increase the risk of dementia, Penn study finds
Read more: https://www.phillyvoice.com/head-injuri ... ncussions/

Head injury and 25‐year risk of dementia
Read the study at: https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wile ... /alz.12315

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

This FREE course is for students, their peers & anyone responsible for their care & well-being

Post by greybeard58 » Thu Mar 18, 2021 1:25 pm

This FREE course is for students, their peers & anyone responsible for their care & well-being

It's widely known that stress, anxiety and depression create challenges for both society and individuals, including interscholastic students. And severe conditions can lead to the worst outcomes, such as suicide.

The NFHS is proud to bring you this course on Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention in response to this reality. With a focus on wellness, including both physical and psychological, this course highlights causes, strategies and provides helpful resources.

This FREE course is for students, their peers & anyone responsible for their care and well-being.

This Course Includes
• Approved for 3 Clock Hours
• Certificate of Completion
• Additional Resources

Course Outline
• 1. Introduction
• 2. A Wellness Framework
• 3. Student Mental Health
• 4. Stress and Anxiety
• 5. Depression
• 6. Suicide Prevention
• 7. Conclusion

Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Elective Course
https://nfhslearn.com/courses/student-m ... prevention

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Post-concussion headaches aren't all alike

Post by greybeard58 » Sun Mar 21, 2021 4:23 pm

Post-concussion headaches aren't all alike

Headaches commonly follow concussions, but a new study of adolescents suggests when they resemble migraines, they may predict lingering injury. Nearly 300 participants ages 5-18 were asked if they had headaches three and six months after their concussions. Patients with any headache took longer to recover, but those with migraine-like ones — marked by nausea and sensitivity to light and sound — took even longer. More than two-thirds of the adolescents with migraine-like headaches were girls, which may explain why girls, who are more likely to suffer from migraines in general, do poorly post-concussion compared to boys. These headaches “could be a target for early intervention to prevent persistent and disabling symptoms,” the authors write.

Evaluation of Posttraumatic Headache Phenotype and Recovery Time After Youth Concussion
Read the study at: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamane ... le/2777144

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Concussion underreporting is endemic

Post by greybeard58 » Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:02 am

Concussion underreporting is endemic

Misperceived concussion reporting norms (most people seeing themselves as more likely than others to report) may contribute to concussion underreporting behavior.

Concussion underreporting is endemic, and social norms are an established predictor of concussion reporting behavior. Pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which most individuals in a group hold the belief that their peers’ views differ from their own, despite views actually being similar.

Pluralistic Ignorance as a Contributing Factor to Concussion Underreporting
Read the study at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 8121995732

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Even Mild Brain Injuries Raise the Risk of Dementia

Post by greybeard58 » Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:45 pm

Even Mild Brain Injuries Raise the Risk of Dementia

You don’t have to be a professional football player to get a solid conk on the head. By one estimate from medical researchers, over 27 million people around the world sustain a traumatic brain injury every year. Some are from car accidents, others are from falls, or taking a header on the soccer field. But a growing body of evidence shows that even mild hits to the head can cause long-term damage and heighten the risk of neurological disease.

The brain is soft and usually cushioned from our skulls by cerebrospinal fluid. But when something hits the head hard enough, our brains get jostled and can smash into that hard bone, causing swelling or bleeding. That can lead to concussion symptoms like short-term memory loss or confusion. (Not every concussion causes people to black out or feel nauseous or dizzy.)

A new study published this month in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia draws from a large data pool tracking Americans whose health outcomes have been tallied for the last 25 years. The authors find that head injuries, even mild ones, are associated with a long-term increase in risk of dementia. The study also found that the more head injuries people sustain, the greater the risk of developing dementia.

Dementia is a general term for memory and cognitive losses caused by changes in the brain. The most common type is Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive and irreversible disorder in which tangles of proteins interrupt how neurons communicate with each other. But there are other types of dementia, including vascular dementia, which occurs when there isn’t enough blood flow supplying oxygen to the brain, and frontotemporal dementia, which is caused by a loss of cells in the front and side regions of the brain that can drastically alter personality and behavior.

The researchers hope that this new information will add to growing awareness about the implications of head injuries and the importance of preventing them. “That’s really one of the most important take-home messages from this study, because head injuries are something that are preventable to some degree,” says Andrea Schneider, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania and the lead author of the paper. “You can do practical things like wearing bike helmets or wearing your seatbelt.”

Previous studies have demonstrated a similar relationship between head injuries and dementia, but most focused on specialized populations like military veterans. Schneider says this study is one of the first to look at the relationship in a general, community-based population, which might be more representative of the average person.

Schneider and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania analysed data from over 14,000 participants in the Atherosclerosis in Communities study, an ongoing effort which has followed people between the ages of 45 and 65 in Minnesota, Maryland, North Carolina, and Mississippi since 1987. The study was meant to track the environmental and genetic conditions that might contribute to heart disease, but the researchers also collected medical records and asked participants to self-report any head injuries.

When the University of Pennsylvania researchers analyzed the data on traumatic brain injuries, they found that people who sustained one head injury were 25 percent more likely to develop dementia than those who did not. That risk doubled for those who had sustained two or more head injuries.

There are other health factors that could play a role, too. Genetics make some people more prone to dementia; some forms are heritable or accompany other progressive disorders like Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease. Other risks include vascular problems like diabetes and high blood pressure, environmental influences like pollution, and lifestyle choices like smoking. But Schneider says head injury is a significant factor. “We were able to say that about 9.5 percent of all cases of dementia in our study were attributable to head injury,” she says.

“This study adds to the growing evidence that head injuries may have negative effects on the brain long after the injury has appeared to heal,” says Deborah Barnes, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, who did not contribute to this study. She adds that the strength of this study lies in the self-reporting criteria, which may help catch many injuries that weren’t severe enough to merit a trip to the emergency room or to show up in medical records, but that still had a long-lasting health effect.

While it’s becoming clearer that brain injuries are related to dementia, it’s not exactly understood why that’s true. It could be that head trauma leads to a buildup of neurofibrillary plaques and tangles that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Or it may trigger an increase in the tau proteins that cause chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease sometimes found in people who receive repeated blows to the head, like football players and boxers, which can cause increased aggression, depression, and memory loss. Another possibility is that when the brain rattles around in the skull, tiny blood vessels get destroyed, decreasing the amount of oxygen available to the brain. The pathology of dementia caused by head injuries is also unclear; not all head injuries lead to the same outcome.

Scientists say that because they can’t examine a patient’s brain while they’re still alive, it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened and when the disease started. “Dementia is a complex disorder that has multiple, interrelated mechanisms that can cause symptoms,” says Barnes. “The brain pathology underlying dementia is occurring for decades before symptoms start to emerge, making dementia mechanisms very difficult to study.”

The University of Pennsylvania study also found that the overall risk of developing dementia following one or more head injuries is about 50 percent greater for women than for men. They also found that it was a little less than 30 percent greater for white people than for Black respondents. (The study didn’t include data for other racial groups.)

But it’s not yet clear why head injuries pose a greater risk for different demographic groups. “The association between sex and race with dementia risk after TBI has not been consistent across all studies, so more research is needed to examine this association,” says Jesse Fann, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Washington who studies dementia but did not contribute to this paper. Some studies have found that women are more likely to develop dementia than men. Others conclude the risk is the same regardless of sex.

A large study published in 2016 by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, using data from over 200,000 Kaiser Permanente patients in six racial groups found that the risk of dementia was 65 percent higher for Black people than for the lowest risk group, Asian Americans. A 2019 study found that the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease dementia was twice as high for Black people as for white people.

“Studies draw from different populations, so part of the explanation may be inherent in the specific study sample for a given study,” Fann points out. He also notes that because dementia risk is already higher for Black patients, the added event of a head injury might not be enough to increase that baseline risk.

Barnes notes that, in the case of the University of Pennsylvania study, because the data relies on self-reporting, it’s also possible that male and Black participants were less likely to report accurately, so the data may not be conclusive.

Schneider was surprised by her study’s findings and acknowledges that the data on these racial and gender differences doesn’t tell the whole story. “There’s a great deal more work that is needed to be done to look at reasons why we may have observed these differences,” says Schneider.

The researchers hope that by understanding who is most harmed by head injuries and how it elevates the risk of dementia, there may be something scientists can do to mitigate their effects. But that goal is still far off. “First, we need to understand these short-term and long-term associations with head injury before we can really think about devising treatment strategies and interventions,” says Schneider.

Right now, if you do suffer a brain injury, there isn’t a lot that one can do to specifically reduce dementia risk. “What we’ve been recommending is that people need to pay attention to all the risk factors that they may have for dementia,” Schneider says. That means making sure patients attend to modifiable behaviors like controlling their blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels. “All of these things that we would actually recommend for everyone, it might be that they’re actually more important for these people that have this other risk of having had a traumatic brain injury,” she says.

But Schneider says that research into brain injuries has already improved patient care by making people more aware of the risks that even mild concussions can present. “I think that what people think about as a serious head injury has actually changed over the years,” she says. “Back 50 years ago, people would just go about their business unless they had to be taken to the hospital or were exceptionally symptomatic.” Now, school and sports leagues have concussion protocols and are less likely to send players back onto the field after they’ve sustained a blow to the head.

Schneider is planning to do further research about how brain trauma might exacerbate the vascular risk factors for dementia and is hoping to learn more about the specific age, sex, and racial factors that contribute to dementia. That way, doctors can start to develop customized treatment plans for brain injury patients. At this point, she says, the biggest lesson is that the more brain trauma you have, the greater your risk of developing dementia becomes.

Even Mild Brain Injuries Raise the Risk of Dementia
A new study shows that concussions and other head traumas can have long-lasting effects on our health.
Read more: https://apple.news/AQQz_XvuYT6SnTQ1f18QGnA

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Concussions can be diagnosed through a saliva test, British researchers find

Post by greybeard58 » Fri Mar 26, 2021 8:40 pm

Concussions can be diagnosed through a saliva test, British researchers find


Adam Kilgore
March 23, 2021 at 5:31 p.m. CDT
Researchers say they can diagnose concussions accurately using a biomarker in saliva, a groundbreaking finding that raises the possibility that doctors and athletic trainers could rapidly determine whether someone suffered a concussion using an objective test, according to a peer-reviewed article published Tuesday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The implications reach beyond the playing field but are significant for sports — especially football, which for years has grappled with how to diagnose concussions and when to allow players to return to play after potentially suffering a brain injury. An objective test would not replace the standard clinical assessment based on symptoms, but it could provide a crucial supplement for confirming concussions or even finding ones that went unreported.

A team of scientists and doctors studied more than 150 rugby players at England’s highest level between 2017 and 2019, comparing saliva samples collected before the season with samples collected as players were assessed for concussions or an injury to another part of their body. The researchers found the genetic markers in saliva determined with 94 percent accuracy which players had been diagnosed with concussions and which had not, co-author and University of Birmingham professor Antonio Belli said.

At present, a diagnostic test for concussions does not exist. Doctors diagnose them by interpreting behavior, symptoms and, in a hospital setting, imaging tests. The new findings could change how concussions are diagnosed in sports and beyond, helping patients that range from football players to victims of traffic accidents to soldiers on a battlefield.

“It is now possible to accurately identify concussions simply by analyzing players' saliva, extending the ability to safeguard the brains of injured players outside professional ranks,” co-author Valentina Di Pietro said in an email.

The University of Birmingham team, with assistance from Rugby Football Union and Marker Diagnostics, relied on recent technological advances in gene sequencing. They used a statistical composite of 14 small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs), which provide the cellular blueprint for certain proteins, to determine whether a player had suffered a concussion.

“What’s exciting about this is we not only found a very accurate way of identifying brain trauma, but also we found it in saliva, which is not invasive,” Belli said. “Everybody, including myself, has been looking at blood for many years. We’ve never really seen anything so exciting for mild traumatic brain injury.”

Two outside experts — Concussion Legacy Foundation co-founder Chris Nowinski and New York University director of neuropsychology William Barr — reviewed the study at The Post’s request before publication. Both said it relied on sound, strong science and represented exciting progress.

“Everybody is looking for a concussion test,” Barr said. “The diagnosis of concussions is really based on clinical findings. A lot of that is based on what a person reports. What we’ve always been looking for is: Is there something objective? Because, in a lot of cases, they’ll deny [feeling symptoms]. That’s what this really adds.”

For sports, the endpoint of the study would be an instant test that could be taken on the sideline to validate a trainer’s concussion diagnosis. Barr outlined how it could help in a familiar scenario: If a player resisted a physician’s concussion diagnosis, the physician could use a saliva test as validation.

“Is there something you can measure in a [sideline] time frame?” Marker Diagnostics research scientist Patrick O’Halloran, one of the researchers for the study, said during a virtual news conference. “This research demonstrates that, yes, you can measure it. There is a signal you can measure. The second component, then, is: Do you have the technology to actually measure it outside of a laboratory setting?”

Right now, there is not. It takes a working day to get test results. But researchers could find the technology in a handful of years or less — benefited indirectly by the coronavirus pandemic. O’Halloran said Marker scientists are discussing ways to make the instant test, an effort that may be expedited by advancements created in the past year as scientists sought more efficient and more accurate coronavirus tests.

Even without a sideline test, experts could see the testing making a major impact on the NFL. Nowinski envisioned testing every player after every game to identify players who suffered concussions but either did not know or were hiding symptoms.

“We know a significant share of concussions are not diagnosed during the game, and players may or may not report them after the game,” Nowinski said. “We could finally get to the bottom of how many concussions are being missed.”

A diagnostic concussion test also could improve how NFL teams handle players after they suffer a potential concussion. Nowinski pointed to the high-profile example of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in last season’s playoffs. Mahomes wobbled with glassy eyes after taking a hit around the neck and left the game. While he was placed in the concussion protocol, reports indicated the Chiefs never fully determined whether Mahomes had suffered a concussion. A test could have provided a more scientific determination, clarifying Mahomes’s recovery process.

One crucial aspect of the study is that only male rugby players were tested, which means more study is required before a test would be applicable for women, including female athletes. Research suggests women respond to and experience concussions differently than men, O’Halloran said, citing the specific example of differing inflammatory markers. Female and male athletes, he said, may have different sncRNA markers.

“The research we’re currently doing in female athletes may show us there’s some overlap, but it’s possible we’d just need a different modeling to diagnose female athletes compared to males,” O’Halloran said. “We don’t think it would be effective to try and transpose the markers found in male athletes based on what we’ve seen so far. We think of ourselves as being a step behind where we are with men’s athletes at the moment for female athletes.”

The Food and Drug Administration would need to approve any tests before they are used in the United States. The British researchers said they hope to submit a test for use in hospital settings for FDA approval in the near future.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2 ... liva-test/

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Concussion underreporting is endemic

Post by greybeard58 » Sun Mar 28, 2021 12:57 am

Concussion underreporting is endemic

Misperceived concussion reporting norms (most people seeing themselves as more likely than others to report) may contribute to concussion underreporting behavior.

Concussion underreporting is endemic, and social norms are an established predictor of concussion reporting behavior. Pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which most individuals in a group hold the belief that their peers’ views differ from their own, despite views actually being similar.

Pluralistic Ignorance as a Contributing Factor to Concussion Underreporting
Read the study at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 8121995732

greybeard58
Posts: 2510
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:40 pm

Concussions linked to later sleep problems

Post by greybeard58 » Sun Mar 28, 2021 1:37 pm

Concussions linked to later sleep problems

People who have experienced a traumatic brain injury are more likely to develop a sleep disorder later, a new study reports. The researchers draw their conclusions from studying nearly 200,000 people in the VA health system for 14 years; half had TBIs and none had previous sleep issues. After adjusting for factors that affect sleep such as diabetes, tobacco use, or substance use disorder, the TBI group had a 40% greater risk of sleep disorders. Surprisingly, milder injuries like concussions were more strongly linked to insomnia, sleep apnea, sleep-related movement disorders, and excessive daytime sleepiness than more serious injuries. The diffuse injury and inflammation in concussions, as opposed to direct blows to the head in severe injuries, may explain the difference.

Traumatic Brain Injury and Incidence Risk of Sleep Disorders in Nearly 200,000 US Veterans
https://n.neurology.org/content/early/2 ... 0000011656

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