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Taylor McCullough
“It’s been nine months, and Taylor McCullough still doesn’t feel right — still doesn’t feel like herself.

“It’s frustrating not having a definite time line,” she explains. “It’s been a long recovery and I’m still recovering.”

It was a moment last December that turned the 18-year-old’s life upside-down.

She was playing ringette — a sport she’s played since she was four. Ringette’s like hockey, played on ice, with skates. Players manoeuvre a rubber ring with a straight stick.

It’s meant to be non-contact.

“I went to intercept a pass over the blueline,” she said. “And another girl came up behind me and bulldozed me over.”

Right away, McCullough knew she had a concussion. This was her second. She suffered the first in 2010, also while playing ringette.

One of the signs that she recognized right away was a headache that felt like “someone is hammering your head.”

McCullough decided to sit out the rest of the tournament and had her parents drive her back home to Ottawa. She said she was coherent, and remembers everything clearly — they even grabbed a bite on the way.

She slept on and off through the next three days — a period she has no memory of now.

“I lost those three days ... I knew something was seriously wrong,” said McCullough, “When I woke up, I didn’t even know what day it was.”
She went to her family doctor, who sent her to CHEO’s Concussion Clinic, and it was confirmed she had a concussion.

...For the first three months after her concussion, McCullough wore sunglasses and a baseball cap in school to block off the florescent light as she was light-sensitive.

She suffered from severe headaches, which had moved to her forehead area from the temple area.

She said her school friends didn’t seem to understand the severity of her concussion.

“They just didn’t understand that I just didn’t want to hang out with them,” McCullough said. “It wasn’t like I was mad at them. They just didn’t get it.”

She still visits CHEO for checkups where they monitor her concentration, sleeping habits, cognitive abilities and moods. She takes vitamins as well as anti-depressants — and she has no idea when she’ll recover completely.

McCullough moved to Cornwall to start her studies at St. Lawrence College this week. She worries the lack of concentration and forgetfulness, also due to her concussion, might affect her studies.

Moreover, it’s hard for her to make any plans in advance, since she doesn’t know when her headache will act up or when she’ll be in the “low spot” of her depression.

McCullough can get frustrated, but she said she’s on better terms with her school friends, as they are more aware of how her head injuries affect her both physically and emotionally.

...McCullough knows she can never play ringette again, but she remains positive and still plans to stay active by getting into cross-country running.
“It was hard for me to sit out the games and watch my teammates have fun, but it’s worth it,” she said. “This is a brain we’re talking about ... it’s not like you can get a new brain.”

Concussions Changing How Kids Play And How We Coach Them
Read more: http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/09/11/con ... coach-them

Brooke Ahbe
“A Dartmouth College women’s hockey season that began with promise is edging toward disappointment after the Big Green’s 3-2 loss Saturday to visiting Vermont.

The Catamounts entered with only three victories, but scored on two of their first eight shots during the first 14 minutes and hung on despite a Dartmouth tally with a minute to play. The nonconference defeat was the Big Green’s sixth consecutive setback and dropped it to 4-8-2.
Dartmouth upset No. 5 Harvard on opening night and tied No. 4 Clarkson in late October before losing only once in five games to begin November. Asked what’s led to his team’s current situation, Dartmouth coach Mark Hudak didn’t fault his players’ effort, but he also didn’t have many answers.

“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh, before pointing out that the Big Green has played its last six games without powerful forward Brooke Ahbe, who’s out with symptoms originally attributed to a concussion, but which may now be something of a different nature. Other Dartmouth skaters have dealt with pneumonia and a sprained wrist.

“Does Brooke make the difference? No, but when you’re thin, there’s a bit of a cascading affect,” Hudak continued. “We lost her before we played at Wisconsin, Quinnipiac, Princeton and UNH for five games. That’s a tough stretch and it’s been one thing after another.”

Catamounts Send Big Green To Sixth Straight Loss
Read more: http://www.vnews.com/sports/20012862-95 ... aight-loss

female athletes, who are 68% more likely to be concussed than their male counterparts. Link below

Nicole Fresella
“As a goalie, your teammates look to you to save the game, and there's no greater feeling than taking the win that could have been determined by one or two saves.

Not only do I like the pressure and intensity of hockey, but the team is like a family, they help keep you motivated. Like any family, we have our good moments and our bad moments, but the memories we create are one's we'll remember forever—especially the bus rides.

Midway through my first year of high school hockey, I received my first concussion. I was hit in the jaw during practice. I started getting headaches, migraines that begin in the temples and then go all around my head. We made it to the championship game, the Kelley Cup, but because of my concussion, I wasn't even allowed on the ice.

The following year, I got another concussion when I was hit in the back of the head with a Tempurpedic pillow. Once again, it was halfway through the season, and again we made it to the championship. But because of my second concussion, I was not allowed on the ice.

The headaches never went away. I tried to keep playing, but my migraines got so bad that in January of this year, I had to go to the emergency room. I've tried different things to deal with the throbbing—cold compresses, many different medications. I stayed quiet for five days, which helped. Then the first period of my first day back in school after the hospital, there was a fire drill. The clanging was piercing to me, and rattled around in my head.

Before my concussions, hockey was my life. I played for two different teams and was playing hockey five days a week. Now, in my senior year of high school, the last year I can play high school sports, I'm not allowed to play at all because of my migraines due to my concussions.

My migraines are so bad now that I now can't even go to my team's games, because the noise makes my head feel worse. Not only can I not play, but I cannot even support my team.

Many young athletes think that a concussion isn't anything to worry about, and I will admit that I used to be one of those people. After educating myself about concussions and how they really affect my body and brain, I want every young athlete to know that a concussion is not something to fool around with.

If you have a concussion, do not rush back into sports. Even the most gentle hit on the head could trigger another concussion, because once you receive your first concussion, you are a lot more susceptible to more concussions. I made the mistake of returning to sports too quickly, and now I am paying the price by not being able to play sports anymore.

Heading for Trouble: Personal Account No. 1
[Note: In the latest issue of The Mag, senior writer Peter Keating examines the dangers of concussions for female athletes, who are 68% more likely to be concussed than their male counterparts. Here, Nicole Fresella, a high school senior in Bernardsville, N.J., gives the first in a series of five personal accounts from women who have suffered concussions on the field of play.]
Read more: http://espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3965050

Kim McCullough was having a career game. The Dartmouth College forward was on her way to registering five points against Boston College. She got below the top of the circle and ripped a shot, just then a BC defensive player laid a two-hander beneath her chin.

McCullough felt weird, but shook it off. Yet immediately after the contest, she puked. Her head throbbed. For the entire two-and-a-half hour bus ride from Boston back to Hanover, New Hampshire, the Toronto native lay on the floor. Over the next three weeks, she couldn't go to school, relegated instead to a dark room.
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According to a study by the Minnesota Department of Health released last spring, high school athletes incurred about 3,000 concussions between August 2013 and May 2014. The most likely to get concussed? Girls' hockey players.

They're somewhere between two to three times more likely to suffer a concussion than male hockey players. McCullough, now a junior coach in Toronto and founder of Total Female Hockey, where she helps sculpt talent with elite aspirations, believes it happens to almost one in three girls who play competitively.

"On a team with 15 skaters," she says, "what I've seen is about four of them will sustain a concussion over the course of the season, where they'll be taken out of play for at least a week. On some teams, it can be higher."

So why are they more prevalent in girls' hockey, where checking is outlawed?

McCullough believes the absence of checking leads players to skate with their heads down, which only increases their vulnerability. And many female players aren't taught how to protect themselves from contact.

As a result, players "go in with blinders on when there's a race for the puck with no thought that the other person might run into them," she says. "In boys hockey, you always have that seed that someone may come in and hit you. In girls' hockey, you know there's going to be contact, but you don't have that seed planted in the back of your head that someone could come and run you over."

http://www.citypages.com/news/the-most- ... ey-7898502

Concussions Plague Women’s Hockey as Stars Are Sidelined

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Josephine Pucci in September. Pucci, who had three diagnosed concussions in college and one in high school, retired from hockey last summer at 24.
BRYAN ANSELM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By SETH BERKMAN
DECEMBER 18, 2015

The gold medal game at the Sochi Olympics last year represented the pinnacle of women’s hockey: a captivating 3-2 overtime victory by Canada over the United States that drew almost five million viewers on NBC.

But Amanda Kessel, a leading scorer for the Americans in Sochi and the college player of the year in 2013, has not played since, ending her career at Minnesota at 23 because of lingering symptoms from a concussion sustained before the Olympics. Her teammate Josephine Pucci retired last summer at 24, cognizant of her concussion history.

A concussion kept Canada’s Haley Irwin out until the Olympic tournament’s semifinals. She assisted on the tying goal in the last minute of the final, but her symptoms returned after the Olympics. Another concussion, in January, has kept her from playing professionally in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.

“You feel completely lost and completely broken as an athlete,” Irwin, 27, said in March after being left off Canada’s roster for the world championships.
Pucci (24) defending against Canada during the gold medal game at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
JAMES HILL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Women’s hockey is a growing sport, evolving through quicker and stronger players who are finally being rewarded for their talents as paid professional athletes. But concussions have kept some of the best players away from the ice for extended periods as the sport struggles to combat an issue that football and men’s hockey have failed at times to properly address. The N.H.L. is facing litigation, with former players accusing the league of glorifying violence and ignoring the dangers of repeated head injuries.

“The amount of players still getting concussions on the national level and college level, it’s too many,” said Pucci, whose sister’s hockey career was also ended by a concussion.

Women’s hockey penalizes body checking and does not have a history of fighting, creating a perception that the sport is safer than men’s hockey. But it is still a contact sport, particularly along the boards and around the goal. As the players grow faster and stronger, they create more powerful collisions, and enforcement of penalties can vary by level.


Despite increased public discussion, there is a dearth of information focused on concussions in women’s hockey. The few published studies available are unsettling.
Pucci began playing at an early age. “I’ve put so much into hockey, and I’ve gotten so much in return,” she said, “but it’s to the point where I feel like it’s time to walk away before I give hockey the opportunity to take too much away from me.”
BRYAN ANSELM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

An eight-year study released this year by the International Ice Hockey Federation analyzed women’s hockey injuries at the world championships and the Olympics. It found that concussions were the third most common injury (15.5 percent), behind contusions (28 percent) and sprains (20.8 percent).

A 2014 summary of self-reported concussions among N.C.A.A. student-athletes said that women’s hockey had the largest percentage of players who had experienced at least one concussion, at 20.9 percent.

In 2012, Dr. Paul Echlin, who helped develop a concussion curriculum in Canadian schools, led a small study of two Canadian college teams and found that female hockey players sustained concussions almost twice as frequently as men did.

The New York Times contacted every N.C.A.A. Division I women’s hockey program for concussion tracking, training and protocol details. Almost two-thirds of colleges did not respond with any information, some citing confidentiality issues. Only Cornell and New Hampshire provided all of the requested data.

Get the latest tweets from @NYTSports, including breaking news, analysis and live updates.

USA Hockey and Hockey Canada did not provide staff members for interviews to detail their concussion programs, instead referring to information on their websites.

“The problem is these organizations are dancing around the issue,” Echlin said, citing concerns about participation numbers as a reason that national federations might not be more forthcoming.

Women’s hockey is not supported by the vast riches that back the N.H.L. and the N.F.L. After college, top players in North America can choose between two professional leagues: the C.W.H.L., which is in its ninth season and does not pay player salaries, and the National Women’s Hockey League, which began play in the fall and offers salaries.


The C.W.H.L.’s physician, Dr. Laura Cruz, recognizes that women’s professional hockey has limited resources. Every N.H.L. game has several doctors and spotters who can identify players exhibiting signs of concussions during games. The C.W.H.L. and the N.W.H.L. employ smaller medical staffs at games.
Minnesota forward Amanda Kessel (8), the college player of the year in 2013, after scoring against Boston University in that year’s N.C.A.A. championship game. Minnesota won, 6-3. Kessel has not played since the 2014 Olympics because of concussion symptoms.
STACY BENGS / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Despite limited means, the C.W.H.L. has made an effort to continually update concussion tracking methods in recent years, Cruz said, and the N.W.H.L. has a player safety department to monitor dangerous plays. It issued its first suspension this month.

Female professional hockey players are eligible for league health insurance, but it may not cover all concussion treatments, some of which can cost thousands of dollars. Professionals in North America make a maximum salary of $25,000; the average N.H.L. salary is about $2.5 million. In college, student-athletes are often covered under limited campus medical plans.

At the N.C.A.A. level, there can also be disparities in resources among larger and smaller institutions, said Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Michigan.

“Every organization that touches the sport needs to be involved and working together,” said Kutcher, who is the director of the N.B.A.’s concussion program. “But that has to be coordinated and real.”

The N.C.A.A. advocates uniform concussion policies for all members, but some players said concussion information was often relayed in broad strokes and only in preseason training sessions that lasted under an hour.

Digit Murphy coached women’s hockey for almost 30 years. She said that with a growing platform, players had the ability to force change and initiate more dialogue with the sport’s governing bodies.

“I really believe someone is going to get killed,” Murphy said. “The sport has gone through so many iterations — N.H.L. and USA Hockey has increased awareness of it, but as you compete for higher stakes, you have this inability to care about the consequences of playing the sport because you’re so focused and intensely involved in the game.”

She added, “When athletics becomes a business, anything that becomes an elephant in the room is not discussed.”

Women with concussion histories described memory deficits and fears of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that has been diagnosed in dozens of former football and hockey players. Many share a familiar script of being holed up in dark rooms, sometimes having to abandon school, jobs and their playing careers.

Paige Decker sustained a career-ending concussion in November 2013 when she was playing for Yale and was blindsided by a check that sent her head crashing to the ice.

Decker has visited more than 40 physicians throughout North America, searching to alleviate the daily pains that saturate her nerves and muscles. She often leaves only with misdiagnoses and thousands of dollars in bills that her insurance does not cover. She compared her constant headaches to barbed wire constricting her brain.

Decker, 23, left a consulting job in Boston a year ago because of her health. She is largely confined to her parents’ house in Connecticut.

“That’s the worst feeling in the world, to not know how to get your life back,” Decker said. “I can’t even articulate — there’s no more raw, darker, deeper emotion of that helplessness.”

Decker’s injury has left no jarring scars, but two pink earplugs signal her discomfort. They reduce the chalkboard-scratching sensations that permeate her head whenever her Labrador retrievers bark or any high-pitched noise emanates nearby.

Decker said women’s hockey should explore more repercussions for illegal physical play. Suspensions and fines are rare.

The player who hit Decker was called for interference, her third infraction of the game. She returned to play after serving a two-minute penalty.

“That penalty didn’t have to happen,” Decker said. “I didn’t have to go through two years of suffering.”

At the time of her injury, Decker said, Yale’s medical staff estimated that she would return from her injury within 10 days. When she did not, she sought alternative treatments through Internet searches and colleague recommendations, unaware of the dangers that some unproven cures carried.

Decker visited Dr. Ted Carrick, whose methods include using a GyroStim, or rotating chair, an alternative method with varying effectiveness. Pucci attributed part of her recovery to visits with Carrick, who also treated the Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby. But Decker said she felt awful after the procedure.

Some players seek other untraditional cures like hyperbaric chambers. Decker eventually traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, to receive prolotherapy, which included an injection of Novocain and dextrose in her neck. When her symptoms returned, she was referred to a local physician who could recreate the dosage.

Decker received 14 injections, causing her neck to swell like a balloon, she said.

“The most excruciating pain I ever experienced in my life,” she said.

Decker added that she knew six college teammates with long-term concussion symptoms. Two teammates, Ashley Dunbar and Lynn Kennedy, sustained career-ending concussions within weeks of Decker’s.

“You see it happening, you know it happens, but for whatever reason I just never really thought that could be me,” Kennedy said.

Asked why there was a rash of concussions in women’s hockey, players, neurologists and physicians offered various reasons, including inconsistent refereeing, inadequate helmets and skill-level disparities.

Some players said they had not learned how to take a hit in youth hockey. Many do not experience more physical play, including checking, until reaching college or higher levels of competition.

Body checking caused 30.8 percent of the concussions in the I.I.H.F. study, but a penalty was called in only 25 percent of the incidents in which a concussion was caused by a body check.

Head injuries can also occur through unintended collisions, which were the leading cause of concussions in the I.I.H.F. study. During a practice drill in 2010, Minnesota goalie Alyssa Grogan dived for a poke check, and a player fell and kneed her in the forehead while another landed on the back of her head. It was her first concussion, but she was forced to retire and missed three semesters at the university.

Even after multiple concussions, leaving the game can be difficult. Despite new professional opportunities, options are limited after college. Participation in the Olympics can lead to thousands of dollars in performance bonuses. Some players hide symptoms to prolong their careers.

Against the advice of some doctors, Pucci, who had three diagnosed concussions in college and one in high school, worked her way back to make the 2014 Olympic roster. But in Sochi, she said, she knew that she would soon leave the game.

“I’ve put so much into hockey, and I’ve gotten so much in return, but it’s to the point where I feel like it’s time to walk away before I give hockey the opportunity to take too much away from me,” Pucci said.

Pucci has known Decker since youth hockey, and they have discussed creating a nonprofit organization to address concussions. Pucci works in clinical research at a cerebral vascular lab at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and hopes to focus her work on concussions in the future.

For now, Decker occasionally posts on a blog she created in September, The Invisible Injury, while the hockey sticks in her garage gather dust.

She enrolled in a comprehensive concussion evaluation program with Kutcher at Michigan and said she was making “slow but steady progress.”

Decker said she did not know the best solution for curbing concussions in women’s hockey. Like many players, though, said believes that more awareness would make a difference.

“You see left and right in doctors’ offices and wherever, your quick little synopsis of what a concussion is, what are symptoms,” she said. “Everyone knows those; it’s textbook. But when you get beyond the typical couple of weeks’ recovery, it’s like, then what happens? That was the challenge I faced.”

Decker added: “There wasn’t a clear-cut path for me or guidance as to what that next step should be. You can’t be running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get help. There’s a lot of room for improvement in terms of concussion awareness and what that actually means.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/sp ... oogle.com/

posted comment to above article

Tammy Talbot's Daughter
"I'm extremely happy that the concussion issue in Women's hockey is brought to your readers attention. My daughter has played hockey since she was 3 years old. She had to withdraw from her high school team this year due to her 3 concussion. This would have been her senior year but due to a slap shot to her head,from 10 feet away during a practice, she will never be able to play a game she truly loves. More needs to be done to protect these athletes."

Hockey Concussions Plague Women's Hockey As Stars Are Sidelined
Read more: http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2015 ... lined.html

2 more stories

Nicole Gomes

“We’re like a family,” said Hannah Hansen, who had three goals and a pair of assists. “We all depend on each other.”

But they can play. Notre Dame has outscored its opponents 24-1 this season. And they’ve done it without their captain, Nicole Gomes, who has been out since the first game of the season with a concussion.

The blueliner was one of the key returning players in the Irish lineup and getting her back would be a big benefit as Notre Dame plays six of its final eight games against teams currently in the top four in the standings.

“She’s a very smart player, a superb offensive talent,” Leonard said. “A lot of our offence is through her because of the turnovers she creates.”
Irish Poised For Another Run At Halton Girls' Hockey Title
Read more: http://m.insidehalton.com/sports-story/ ... ckey-title

Noelle White

But she is not alone in her efforts between the pipes, splitting time with fellow net minder senior Noelle White. White was forced to miss some time this season due to a concussion, so O’Neil has seen a little more action than usual, but O’Neil looks forward to having her friend and teammate back on the ice as soon as possible, as the duo bring out the best in each other.
“It is definitely a healthy and friendly competition,” O’Neil said. “We are really good friends and we push each other. Splitting time also helps to keep us both healthy, which definitely works in our favor.”

O'Neil Sets Single Game Save Record At Franklin Pierce
Read more: http://homenewshere.com/tewksbury_town_ ... ccc73.html

anonNY
If women playing hockey sustain concussions "almost twice as frequently as men," despite the lack of checking or fighting--and with much slower moving players and pucks--maybe the Times' editorial board isn't correct that allowing women in combat, which is mostly a men's league, "will make the military stronger." (Female athletes also rupture their ACLs 4 to 6 times as often as males playing the same sports, faster and more violently).

That so many male athletes suffer permanent harm from concussions without ever earning a living playing a sport is wasteful; that so many female athletes are now suffering the same "memory deficits and fears of chronic traumatic encephalopathy" without even the possibility of a lucrative professional career is absurd, especially since such damage to the brain frequently occurs at institutions purportedly dedicated to improving it.

Not mentioned among the possible reasons for the disparity in concussion rates is the reactionary, sexist notion that women's bodies are inherently less well adapted than men's to the stresses of even semi-contact sports (differences in neck strength and the agility to avoid collisions are two factors obvious to anyone who's watched boys' and girls' high school sports), perhaps because acknowledging that reality would mean that encouraging girls to play such sports is a form of child abuse.

Sources:
"Why Do Females Injure Their Knees 4 to 6 Times More Than Men"

http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2015 ... lined.html

sss2604Sperryville, Virginia
"I played hockey I had a concussion, I thought I had healed, but for 2-3 years I had headaches off and on. Along with a whole host of other symptoms that I never linked to my confusion. My ears felt full of water, like they needed to pop, facial numbness, dizzy nausea, brain fog, difficulty finding words, and a whole host of other symptoms. Turns out I had a Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF) leak. This causes Intercrainial Hypotension (low pressure) CSF supports and floats your brain, without CSF your brain sinks in your skull. This pulls on some facial nerves, and the weight of your brain can crush others. Just as bad in inter cranial hypertension (high pressure). This often can come from concussion and other factors. If you have continuing symptoms from concussion please check out CSF leaks."

Read more: http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2015 ... lined.html

Link to the comments on the article

http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2015 ... lined.html

Alison Duany

"Hockey coaches are forever telling their players to keep their sticks on the ice, but the Lebanon High girls twice had their blades down in the wrong place and at the wrong time Saturday. The plucky Raiders, who dressed only nine skaters and an inexperienced goaltender, lost 4-3 to Oyster River at Campion Rink. Two of the Bobcats’ goals deflected in off their hosts’ lumber.

“When the puck’s sliding toward our goalie unimpeded, you want to leave that one alone,” Lebanon coach Brad Shaw said with a wry chuckle. “But our players skated their butts off and one or two bounces the other way and it would have been different.

“We’ve come a long way in two games, and this is one where I really feel like we won all the battles but lost the war.”

It’s going to be a challenging campaign for the Raiders (0-2), who have only 12 players on their roster. The program has never overflowed with talent like that of rival Hanover, but skating with a skeleton crew is a new experience. Lebanon deployed only two forward lines and three defensemen Saturday because starting goaltender Hope Brown is ill and forward Alison Duany is being held out because of a possible concussion.

“We’re really working on them getting rest and staying hydrated, because with our numbers, we can’t afford to lose any more,” Shaw said."
Despite Low Numbers, Lebanon Plugs Away
Read more: http://mobile.vnews.com/home/20134224-1 ... plugs-away

Nathalie Ferno
"Sweden National Team player Nathalie Ferno also out with concussion. Checking to the head prevalent in women's hockey?"

#Concussion
Read more: https://mobile.twitter.com/Ice_Hockey_D ... 7968710656

Swedish World Cup Captain Jenni Asserholt
"Damkronorna have to do without captain Jenni Asserholt in the coming weekend's training internationals against Finland on the Åland Islands. In the weekend's friendly match against Everton hit HV71's star solicitation of a concussion that put her out of the game.

Asserholt was captain of the Swedish World Cup team in Malmö this spring. She won championships with Linkoping before she chose to leave Östergötland game with newcomer HV71 in Riksserien.

Another big name as coach Leif Boork miss out on the Modos forward Erika Grahm, who has submitted a cancellation. Grahm fired four goals and had six points in four World Cup matches in the spring.

The Captain Received Concussion

The Captain Received Concussion - Miss National Training Camp (translated from original Swedish)

Read more: http://www.hockeysverige.se/2015/08/24/ ... agslagret/

Pioneer Press posts the article on their sports section, where is the Star Tribune? Are they in league with the concussion deniers, High School coaches Assn and those that profit from girls hockey?


http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_292 ... -more-dire



Women's hockey grows bigger, faster and more dire
By Seth Berkman
New York Times
POSTED: 12/19/2015 12:01:00 AM CST | UPDATED: ABOUT 22 HOURS AGO

The gold medal game at the Sochi Olympics last year represented the pinnacle of women's hockey: a captivating 3-2 overtime victory by Canada over the United States that drew almost five million viewers on NBC.

But Amanda Kessel, a leading scorer for the Americans in Sochi and the college player of the year in 2013, has not played since, ending her career at Minnesota at 23 because of lingering symptoms from a concussion sustained before the Olympics. Her teammate Josephine Pucci retired over the summer at 24, cognizant of her concussion history.

A concussion kept Canada's Haley Irwin out until the Olympic tournament's semifinals. She assisted on the tying goal in the last minute of the final, but her symptoms returned after the Olympics. Another concussion, in January, has kept her from playing professionally in the Canadian Women's Hockey League.

"You feel completely lost and completely broken as an athlete," Irwin, 27, said in March after being left off Canada's roster for the world championships.

Women's hockey is a growing sport, evolving through quicker and stronger players who are finally being rewarded for their talents as paid professional athletes. But concussions have kept some of the best players away from the ice for extended periods as the sport struggles to combat an issue that football and men's hockey have failed at times to properly address. The NHL is facing litigation, with former players accusing the league of glorifying violence and ignoring the dangers of repeated head injuries.

"The amount of players still getting concussions on the national level and college level, it's too many," said Pucci, whose sister's hockey career was also ended by a concussion.

Women's hockey penalizes body checking and does not have a history of fighting, creating a perception that the sport is safer than men's hockey. But it is still a contact sport, particularly along the boards and around the goal. As the players grow faster and stronger, they create more powerful collisions, and enforcement of penalties can vary by level.

Despite increased public discussion, there is a dearth of information focused on concussions in women's hockey. The few published studies available are unsettling.

An eight-year study released this year by the International Ice Hockey Federation analyzed women's hockey injuries at the world championships and the Olympics. It found that concussions were the third-most-common injury (15.5 percent), behind contusions (28 percent) and sprains (20.8 percent).

A 2014 summary of self-reported concussions among NCAA student-athletes said that women's hockey had the largest percentage of players who had experienced at least one concussion, at 20.9 percent.

In 2012, Dr. Paul Echlin, who helped develop a concussion curriculum in Canadian schools, led a small study of two Canadian college teams and found that female hockey players sustained concussions almost twice as frequently as men did.

The New York Times contacted every NCAA Division I women's hockey program to ask about concussion tracking, training and protocol details. Almost two-thirds of colleges did not respond with any information. Only Cornell and New Hampshire provided all of the requested data. USA Hockey and Hockey Canada did not provide staff members for interviews to detail their concussion programs.

"The problem is these organizations are dancing around the issue," Echlin said, citing concerns about participation numbers as a reason that national federations might not be more forthcoming.

Women's hockey is not supported by the vast riches that back the NHL and the NFL. After college, top players in North America can choose between two professional leagues: the Canadian Women's Hockey League, which is in its ninth season and does not pay player salaries, and the National Women's Hockey League, which began play in the fall and offers salaries.

The CWHL's physician, Dr. Laura Cruz, recognizes that women's professional hockey has limited resources. Every NHL game has several doctors and spotters who can identify players exhibiting signs of concussions during games. The CWHL and the NWHL employ smaller medical staffs at games.

At the NCAA level, there can also be disparities in resources among larger and smaller institutions, said Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Michigan.

"Every organization that touches the sport needs to be involved and working together," said Kutcher, who is the director of the NBA's concussion program. "But that has to be coordinated and real." The NCAA advocates uniform concussion policies for all members, but some players said concussion information was often relayed in broad strokes and only in preseason training sessions that lasted under an hour.

Women with concussion histories described memory deficits and fears of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that has been diagnosed in dozens of former football and hockey players. Many share a familiar script of being holed up in dark rooms, sometimes having to abandon school, jobs and their playing careers.

Paige Decker sustained a career-ending concussion in November 2013 when she was playing for Yale and was blindsided by a check that sent her head crashing to the ice.

Decker has visited more than 40 physicians throughout North America, searching to alleviate the daily pains that saturate her nerves and muscles. She often leaves only with misdiagnoses and thousands of dollars in bills that her insurance does not cover. She compared her constant headaches to barbed wire constricting her brain.

Decker, 23, left a consulting job in Boston a year ago because of her health. She is largely confined to her parents' house in Connecticut.

"That's the worst feeling in the world, to not know how to get your life back," Decker said. "I can't even articulate -- there's no more raw, darker, deeper emotion of that helplessness."

At the time of her injury, Decker said, Yale's medical staff estimated that she would return from her injury within 10 days. When she did not, she sought alternative treatments through Internet searches and colleague recommendations, unaware of the dangers that some unproven cures carried.

Decker visited Dr. Ted Carrick, whose methods include using a GyroStim, or rotating chair, an alternative method with varying effectiveness. Pucci attributed part of her recovery to visits with Carrick, who also treated Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby. But Decker said she felt awful after the procedure.

Some players seek other untraditional cures like hyperbaric chambers. Decker eventually traveled to Vancouver, British Columbia, to receive prolotherapy, which included an injection of Novocain and dextrose in her neck.

When her symptoms returned, she was referred to a local physician who could recreate the dosage.

Decker received 14 injections, causing her neck to swell like a balloon, she said.

"The most excruciating pain I ever experienced in my life," she said.

Pucci has known Decker since youth hockey, and they have discussed creating a nonprofit organization to address concussions. Pucci works in clinical research at a cerebral vascular lab at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and hopes to focus her work on concussions in the future.

For now, Decker occasionally posts on a blog she created in September, The Invisible Injury, while the hockey sticks in her garage gather dust.

She enrolled in a comprehensive concussion evaluation program with Kutcher at Michigan and said she was making "slow but steady progress." Decker said she did not know the best solution for curbing concussions in women's hockey. Like many players, though, she said that more awareness would make a difference.

"You see left and right in doctors' offices and wherever, your quick little synopsis of what a concussion is, what are symptoms," she said. "Everyone knows those; it's textbook. But when you get beyond the typical couple of weeks' recovery, it's like, then what happens? That was the challenge I faced." Decker added: "There wasn't a clear-cut path for me or guidance as to what that next step should be. You can't be running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get help. There's a lot of room for improvement in terms of concussion awareness and what that actually means."

Stacie Tardif
"Eleven different players registered goals or the Martlets, including four of the six rearguards who dressed -- Cathy Chartrand (power play) of Lac Nominingue, Catherine Ward (shorthanded) from Town of Mt. Royal, Que., and Jasmine Sheehan, a junior from Mississauga, had four points apiece, plus freshman defender Stacie Tardif, who notched her first career CIS marker after missing four league games with a concussion."

Bettez talks turkey as Martlets carve Concordia
Read more: http://www.mcgill.ca/channels/news/bett ... dia-105938

Below isa comment from a concerned College Professor and the attempts to help a student hockey player. As a reminder and we are finding out the only people involved in college athletics that have the poorest health coverage and long term treatment are the athletes. Parents be aware!!!!

Susan's Student in Madison
SusanMadison
It is shameful how the colleges and universities are ignoring this problem and the real human lives who are affected. I am faculty and had one of these students in my class. Her short term memory was shattered by too many hockey concussions and her dreams of a health-profession career were ended. She could not handle a full course load and was terrified her scholarship would end before she could graduate. I called all her profs and we developed special exams to accommodate her memory issues. I called student health b/c she was not getting the counseling she needed. I called the sports dept and they were in denial. She is one of the finest students I've had and it is shameful how these gals are being used, spat out, and hung up to dry. Thank you for your article though I am not optimistic that change will happen."

Comments | Women’s Hockey Grows Bigger, Faster and Dire
Read more: http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2015 ... lined.html

The last post was the 310th story. As the stories keep coming I will keep posting. I hope the readers can become aware of the symptoms caused by a concussion(s) to save the player from themselves. Also if a coach is trying to have a player come back too early, remember who has the proper education to make the decision and is the coaches decision in the best interest of the player or does the coach want to win at all costs and sacrifice your child's future in the process.

Reebok-CCM told it can't claim hockey helmet protects against concussion
A study earlier this year found there are no helmets on the market that prevent concussion.


Reebok-CCM Resistance helmet

Reebok-CCM tested its Resistance helmet, but the Competition Bureau said any claims that it protects against concussion are not verifiable. (Reebok-CCM)

Reebok-CCM has been told by the Competition Bureau that it cannot claim its hockey helmets prevent head injuries such as concussions.

Nine months after a Virginia Tech study showed that most hockey helmets on the market weren't adequate to reduce the risk of head injuries, the sportswear maker has agreed to cease marketing its helmets as a way of preventing concussions.

Most hockey helmets fail new safety evaluation proposed by Virginia Tech study

The bureau announced todaythat Reebok-CCM had agreed to remove or modify the claims from all marketing material, including packaging and online advertising for its CCM Resistance hockey helmet. It also must prevent retailers from making such claims.

The Ottawa-based regulator said testing done by Reebok-CCM on the helmets was "not adequate and proper to support the marketing claims."

It made the same demand in November 2014 to Bauer to remove marketing claims that its RE-AKT helmet could help prevent concussions.
Researchers urge redesign of helmets

The Virginia Tech study evaluated helmets based on the rotational acceleration that occurs when the head turns on impact, a common factor in concussions. It also tested linear acceleration, or motion in the direction of the impact, assigning a measure for level of impact.

'Current hockey helmet testing standards are aimed at protecting players from catastrophic brain injuries, such as skull fractures, not concussions'
- Competition Bureau

It concluded that no hockey helmet on the market actually prevented concussions, though they will prevent skull fractures.

The researchers urged redesign of hockey helmets along the lines of football helmets, which cover more of the head and have a different style of padding.

In its warning to Reebok-CCM, the Competition Bureau points out that the science behind concussions in sports is still in its infancy and the role of helmets remains unclear.

"Current hockey helmet testing standards are aimed at protecting players from catastrophic brain injuries, such as skull fractures, not concussions," the bureau said in a news release.

"There are a multitude of factors such as age, weight, strength of the player, location of impact, and whether the hit was or was not anticipated when assessing concussion injury risk related to sports."

Reebok-CCM must pay $30,000 to cover the cost of the bureau's investigation and donate $475,000 in equipment to a Canadian charity that allows underprivileged children or youth to play sports.




http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/business/ho ... -1.3375030

The Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton announced Tuesday that the committee will conduct a “broad review” of concussions in 2016.

According to the announcement, the committee will work with medical experts to determine the implications of concussions and advance understanding of the injury.

“We often hear about concussions in the context of service members and athletes, but this problem goes well beyond the battlefield and the gridiron,” said Upton. “It’s a matter of public health as these injuries are prevalent in all ages and across the population. Unfortunately, there’s a lot we don’t know about head trauma - how it effects different subsets of the population, the short and long term effects, and other details critical to developing effective diagnostics and treatments.”

• Will Smith featured on SI cover ahead of Concussion movie release

Upton also added that the intention of the review is to create a “thoughtful dialogue” about the injury.

“We have the opportunity to improve our understanding and better care for our kids and families,” Upton said.

Concussions and their causes and effects have become prominent topics in sports, especially in the NFL. Concussion, a movie about Dr. Bennet Omalu, who helped discover CTE and linked it to football-specific head trauma after performing autopsies, is set to be released Christmas Day.

- Xandria James
http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/12/22/energy ... ion-review

A Grand Forks KnightRider Goalie

"Bailee Enlow was on the cusp of writing her own Cinderella story at the East Grand Forks Civic Center Tuesday. But Livia Pesch ruined it -- three times.

Pesch scored all of Senior High’s goals, including one late in regulation and another in overtime as the Green Wave rallied for a 3-2 win over the Grand Forks KnightRiders.

A senior for the Grand Forks cooperative of Central and Red River, Enlow donned the goalie pads Tuesday for the first time since she was 12 years old. One of the KnightRiders’ goalies couldn’t play because of a concussion and the other was out of the country on vacation.

Because rescheduling the game wasn’t possible, Grand Forks coach Alex Hedlund said a cancellation was likely. But then Enlow volunteered to don the goalie pads, getting one practice on Monday before her high school goalie debut."
Green Wave Rally For A 3-2 Win Over KnightRiders
Read more: http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/ ... ightriders

9 Out Of 29 Current Woodbury Royals

"Royals girls hockey coach Chris Lepper said nine of the 29 players on his team have missed games this season because of concussions.

“It seems like every time we turn around and do something, there’s a concussion accident,” the fourth-year coach said. “In general after a hit you can tell (if a player sustains a concussion. We have had players that have had no symptoms whatsoever and then two days later they display symptoms of a concussion.

The team follows the protocol outlined by the Minnesota State High School League for returning players to the ice. In general players may undertake light aerobic exercise after all symptoms have resolved and then can begin sport-specific exercises, such as skating or running.

After that they may participate in non-contact drills, then full-contact drills and then in game play. The league requires 24 hours between each step.

Symptoms of a concussion include headache, fogginess, difficulty concentrating, slowed thought process, nausea, dizziness, poor balance and more. The league’s concussion policy states that only a medical professional can determine if an athlete sustains a concussion.

A 2011 state law requires coach to remove athletes under 18 from sporting events from play if they exhibit concussion symptoms. A medical professional must clear a player in writing before he or she can return to play, the MSHSL policy states.

Minnesota high school students sustained nearly 3,000 sports-related concussions during the 2013-14 school year, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Football and boys and girls hockey had the highest concussion rates at six concussions per 100 athletes.

MSHSL rules penalize checking in girls hockey, but there is still contact in the sport. A recent New York Times article detailed how common concussions are at the sport’s highest level, noting the injury among top college and Olympic players.

Lepper said one wrong angle on a play near the boards can cause a concussion. He said he talks to his teams about going into the boards at an angle to avoid a hit, but there’s not a lot coaches can do about preventing the contact.

Three of the program’s 29 varsity and junior varsity players remained injured as of Sunday, Lepper said. For a few weeks this season, he said, the teams had just 21 healthy players.

“We’re slowly putting more of the pieces back in to where we were when we started the season,” Lepper said. “There hasn’t been the continuity this year with anything because of all the injuries we’ve had.”
Woodbury Girls Hockey: Royals Dealing With Head Injuries
Read more: http://www.woodburybulletin.com/sports/ ... d-injuries


Courtney Johnston
"The Levis and Courtney Johnston combination early in the second put Rogers up 2-0, and Johnston added a goal of her of her own just minutes later to give the Royals a comfortable 3-0 lead.

Johnston had her first points since a concussion early in the season forced her to miss the first half of December. Olson and Marie Reimer assisted on Johnston’s goal, Reimer’s second assist of the year."



Rogers Girls Hockey Rolls Over Irondale
Read more: http://erstarnews.com/2015/12/23/rogers ... -irondale/

Dr Kanten's daughter Rachel

"Dr. Kanten understands the importance of ImPACT testing not only from the medical aspect but also from a parental aspect; his daughter, Rachel, suffered a concussion some years back as a junior defenseman for the Crookston Pirates Girl’s Hockey Team.

“It wasn’t a big hit that she took,’’ reported Dr. Kanten. “It didn’t look like anything major on the ice. Her coaches didn’t even think anything of it, except she had a headache. But the test after really clarified that there was an issue. This test proves that anyone can have a concussion and not realize it. It (ImPACT) takes the guesswork out of the situation.’’

RiverView Marks 5 Years Of Progressive Concussion Management Program
http://m.crookstontimes.com/article/201 ... /151229823

The Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance is collaborating with Beth El Synagogue to bring Omalu here.

Former Viking Esera Tuaolo is scheduled to be the celebrity chef for Beth El Synagogue’s “Inspiring Minds Series” featuring Dr. Bennet Omalu.

Omalu is the forensic pathologist who identified the degenerative disease CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in football players. The doctor is the subject of “Concussion,” the movie least welcomed by the NFL, starring Will Smith and opening at theaters Christmas Day.

Beth El’s evening with Omalu is scheduled for Feb. 25 at the synagogue in St. Louis Park.

“When we plan the receptions before the events, we try to identify a chef who speaks to the mission and message of the event,” Rabbi Avi Olitzky told me Thursday. “We are thrilled to be able to include a former football player, in light of the topic.” Tickets are available at www.besyn.org/concussion.

The Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance is collaborating with Beth El Synagogue to bring Omalu here.

The issue of concussions has become red-hot for the NFL, between this movie and the condemnation of football by others, including two University of Minnesota doctors who have called for the removal of football programs from all public schools because of head injury data. Pro football is the USA’s favorite professional sport.

Although I have been promised invitations to dining events thrown by Tuaolo — he once talked up a pig roast to me — I have never actually been invited to one of the parties. He and I have enjoyed a few meals at restaurants over the years.

In an interview earlier this year with Tuaolo, a singer whose NFL career also included playing for the Packers, Jaguars and Falcons, the retired nose guard told me he has lingering knee pain, which he believes is “creating chronic pain throughout my whole body.”

As for injuring his brain, Tuaolo said: “I got a lot of concussions, and I’m sure I gave a few. But that’s the profession. Playing a nose guard, you are never not getting hit. Of course, I am worried about that. The older I get, the more the body reacts differently. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and feel OK; sometimes it’s hard for me to walk. I try to stay positive about things.”

Tuaolo noted that the life expectancy of a lineman is 55. He’s in his late 40s.

http://m.startribune.com/c-j-former-vik ... 363472301/

http://www.besyn.org/concussion/

Info on Goalie Mask study

"None of the hockey goalie masks in this study provided superior protection from concussion forces.

Goaltenders in ice hockey are the only players that are on the ice for the entire game. Their position exposes them to impacts from collisions with other players, falls to the ice, and puck impacts. In competitive ice hockey leagues, head injuries resulting from puck impacts have been reported with some cases resulting in ending the player's career.

Considerable research has been conducted to assess the performance of hockey helmets; however, few have assessed the performance of goaltenders' masks. The purpose of this study was to compare the capacity of four goaltenders' masks for the protection from puck impact as measured by head acceleration and peak force.

A Hybrid III headform was fitted with four different goaltender masks and impacted with a hockey puck in three locations at 25 m/s. The masks were found to vary in the level of protection they offered as the mask with the thickest liner resulted in lower forces than the thinnest mask for side impacts; however, the thinnest mask resulted in the lowest force for front impacts. Despite performance differences at specific locations, no one mask proved to be superior as peak acceleration and peak force values did not exceed the thresholds necessary for concussion."

A comparison of the capacity of ice hockey goaltender masks for the protection from puck impacts.
Nur S, et al. Sports Biomech. 2015.
Read more: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26644178/

Since her last name won’t post and her links won’t pass the censor, here’s the text from her 4 blog stories about her own concussion experience.
(Here’s her link for your records - http://www.colleenfagan.com/blog/2015/1 ... steps-back)
If the censor puts ban me in the address it is colleenf+a+g+a+n.

Colleen, December 3, 2015
“It has been a few days since I last posted, and there is a reason for that…over the past 2 weeks, my post-concussion syndrome symptoms have become more intense – more severe headaches, more numbness on the right side of my body, more memory problems, more nausea and dizziness, increased fatigue, the list goes on and on. I am currently working with my doctors to determine how to best proceed, but in the meantime, I thought that I would give you some more background information on all of my concussions.

So, let me begin with my first documented concussion. In July of 2009, I was 13-years-old and at the State Development Ice Hockey Camp. Nearing the end of the week, I was on the ice practicing with my team. Beginning the drill, I skated from the corner to the blue line and then turning to drive towards the net. The last thing I remember was skating towards the net. The first thing I remember was standing in the corner of the ice. From what my teammates have told me, one of my teammates began the drill just as I was heading towards the net. I never saw her, but she saw me at the last minute, lowering her shoulder to protect herself. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t ready for the hit so I flew into the air, coming down and landing on my head.

As my coach led me over to the bench after asking if I was okay, the trainer came around to evaluate me. Immediately she knew that I had a concussion. Having me get out of my gear so she could do a complete exam, she began to give me words to remember. Then she asked me to recall my birthdate and phone number, neither of which I could do. After going through the whole litany of questions and tests, she determined that I had sustained a concussion. Calling my parents, the trainer explained to them what happened and then called my doctor. To be honest, those few hours following my concussion are a complete blur.

Over the next week, I was on complete cognitive rest – no phone, no computer, and no television. I wasn’t even able to spend time outside with my friends for long periods of time. Finally after two weeks, my symptoms seemed to dissipate completely and I was able to get on with my summer and hockey!

Feeling better for a few weeks, I returned to hockey and got my season started. However, in October of 2009, I began to have floaters in my vision, severe headaches, and dizziness. At first the doctors thought I needed glasses, then they thought I could have a brain tumor, then they diagnosed me with migraines. But, the migraine medication they gave me only helped with some of my symptoms. Finally, in November of 2009, it was determined that I had post concussion syndrome. They way they described it to me was that post concussion syndrome was when the symptoms of a concussion last for weeks or months after a concussion.

Going back on physical and cognitive rest, getting chiropractic adjustments, and acupuncture treatments, my symptoms began to dissipate. Finally, in December of 2009, 5 months after sustaining the concussion, all of my symptoms were gone and I was able to return to hockey!

Okay, there is the short story behind my first documented concussion, stay tuned for the story behind concussions number 2 & 3 later this week.”


Colleen, December 5, 2015
“Now that I gave you a little bit of background on my first concussion, I want to give you the story of my second and third documented concussions.

On May 2nd, 2012, I was in my junior year of high school. Playing in a public school high school spring league, I played every Wednesday night from mid-April through June. Early in the afternoon on May 2nd, I got a text asking if I could come an hour early to help one of the teams in the league that was short players for the day. Excited to get extra ice time, I showed up to the rink ready to go. Come to find out, they really didn't have any players – they had 6 skaters and 1 goalie, not ideal but it was more ice time so I was happy.

About halfway through the game, I was breaking the puck out of the defensive end, rushing down the ice. Skating by one of my opponents, she tried to get the puck away from me, but I kept going. BANG. Shocked I stopped skating. Processing what happened, I figured out that the girl on the other team had hit me over the head with her hockey stick like a baseball bat. Feeling dazed and a little strange, I skated to the bench. Asking if I was okay, I told my coach that I felt weird but that I didn’t have a headache. So, I continued to play.

Later that same game, I rushed the puck down the ice, going in on a breakaway. Getting a shot off, I went for the rebound, but the goalie covered the puck. The last thing I remember was turning to line up for the faceoff, the next thing I remember was laying on the ice staring at the girl who had hit me from behind. Stunned, once again, and beginning to lose feeling on the right side of my body, I didn't move for a few seconds. Then the referee yelled at me to get up. Doing so, I skated to the bench.

Once again, my coach asked if I was okay and I told her the truth – I didn’t have a headache, but I felt stunned and weird. That game quickly ended and I went on to play in my team's game. I don’t remember much more from that day, but I do remember that by the end of that night, I had lost feeling on the right side of my body. When my mom came to pick me up, I told her what happened and she took me home. Waking up the next morning with the same symptoms, my mom brought me to the doctors.

It wasn’t until I was leaving the doctors about 18 hours after my hits that I began to have a headache. Over the span of the next two weeks, I continuously got worse. I was unable to go to school, I had memory problems, nausea, exhaustion, right sided numbness, headaches, light and noise sensitivity, the list went on and on. I was so frustrated, because I couldn’t remember conversations, I couldn’t remember anything that I had learned in my classes that year, and I couldn’t play hockey, heck I couldn’t even leave my room for more than a few hours everyday.

In the 2 months following my concussion, I tried so many different treatments – physical therapy, vestibular therapy, chiropractic adjustments, acupuncture, and massage therapy. At first I didn't understand why nothing was helping, but then I slowly I began to improve. Looking back though, that concussion began to change the entire course of my life.

To this day, I do not remember all of what happened while I had my concussion, or even what happened in the 9 months prior to my concussion. I still don’t remember things that I learned in school my junior year or goings on with my friends and family. It all just seems to be a big blur. But, as my physical symptoms began to dissipate, I didn’t think much about my memory problems.

As August dawned, I decided to participate in dual-enrollment my senior year, where I would attend college while receiving high school and college credits. When I began my classes, I seemed to do very well in each class. However, I realized that I was putting in so much more time than most of my classmates. I credited to the fact that these were college classes and my classmates were older than me, but it slowly became clear that I was having trouble understanding and retaining the information. Basically, I was spending time out of class teaching myself the material that the professors were teaching in class. To me, what they were teaching in class was gibberish.

So, there was one lasting effect from my concussions. The next one was completely out of the blue and I didn’t credit it to my concussions until more recently. In October of 2012, I became really sick to the point where I didn’t eat for 5 days. Whenever I ate anything, I had horrible stomach pain and would get sick. After going through a whole slew of tests, the doctors didn’t know what was really wrong. So, I made the decision to try a gluten free diet. I never looked back. Soon, my stomach pain and headaches were better, I wasn’t getting sick on a regular basis, and I felt better than I had in months.

After these two concussions especially, I realized how much of an impact concussions can have on ones life. In the span of a night, the entire course of my life was subtly changed. While I do wonder what my life would have been like if I had stopped after that first hit on May 2nd, I wouldn’t be the person am today. I do believe that everything happens for a reason. Then and now, I know that I just need to believe in the plan that God has for me.

I hope that by sharing my story, I can help someone else who is going down the same path as me. So, that is a bit about my 2nd and 3rd concussions! I will share more about my 4th concussion and diagnosis in a few days and bring you up to speed on what I’m doing to continue to recover today.”


Colleen, December 6, 2015
‘Alright, so now that you know about my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd concussions, it is time for me to bring you up to speed on my 4th concussion.

In February of 2014, in my 2nd semester of college at Husson University, I was diagnosed with my 4th documented concussion. Although we don't know the exact date of my concussion, the doctor’s best guess is that I sustained it in December of 2013 while playing in a hockey tournament.

They think that I sustained it after dislocating my shoulder too many times (about 5 times per game), but we will never be certain when I sustained it or if I sustained multiple concussions before getting an official diagnosis. Forced to withdraw from school, because my symptoms were so intense, I spent the next 3 months in my room in the dark. For 3 months, the only time I left my room was to go to the hospital for more testing. Unable to work or go to school, I spent those 3 months willing myself to improve. In the span of 19 months, I saw more than 25 doctors/medical professionals, went to 12 different hospitals/medical practices, sent to 3 different states for treatments/opinions, underwent 2 surgeries to regulate the pressure in my brain, and completed 1 clinical trial. During those 19 months, I did not go one day without a headache. I experienced severe headaches, nausea, dizziness, memory loss, speech impediments, cognitive issues, decreased sensation on the right side of my body, numbness and tingling, light and noise sensitivity, fatigue, balance problems, the list goes on and on.

Doctors would look at me and tell me that I was as good as I was going to get and that I needed to accept that, that my symptoms were not anatomically possible, and that my symptoms were all in my head. Everything that I knew and loved was ripped away from me. After my last concussion, I was left holding the pieces of my life, trying to put them back together. Everyday has been, and continues to be a struggle for me. In April of 2015, my symptoms became so intense to the point where I could not sit up for more than 4 hours a day. Forced to leave work, I traveled to North Carolina to a specialist who tried to regulate the pressure around my brain and spine. In the four weeks following the procedure, my symptoms improved and I was able to function at a somewhat normal level. In June and July, my symptoms became increasingly worse to the point that I had surgery while on vacation to decrease the pressure. Unfortunately, the procedure made my symptoms worse. Unsure who else to turn to, I sought the expertise of neurosurgeons, neuro-ophthalmologists, and neurologists. Unfortunately, they were unable to shed any light on why I was not improving. Instead, I was told that I had never had any concussions before, and that it was all in my head.

In one last attempt to recover, I traveled to the Cerebrum Health Centers (formerly Carrick Brain Centers) in Dallas, Texas. During the last week of August, I endured an intense week of therapy at the the Cerebrum Health Centers. Upon my arrival, they did a full exam on me and determined that while my left brain is there in mass and matter, it had not been functioning properly. The left side of the brain is what controls speech, logic, reasoning, enables people to do math and science, write, and controls all movements and feeling on the right side of the body. If you had spent any amount of time with me over the past two years, you would have noticed that I had trouble speaking, I couldn't do simple math, I could not learn easily, and I would write words out of order (among other symptoms). Besides that, they determined that all of my allergies/intolerances - gluten, dairy, soy, peanuts, eggs, and tomatoes - that have appeared during the past 5 years have all been a result of my concussions. Establishing a treatment plan immediately, I had a doctor and intern assigned to my case. Working with them 3 times a day, I began to slowly improve. Their intent was to re-wire my left-brain. At the beginning of the week, if I closed my eyes, I would fall over. Or if someone were to touch the fingers on my right hand I wouldn’t be able to tell which finger was being touched. If you were to move my right toes up and down, I wouldn’t be able to tell if they were going up or down. Even looking at my right hand in a mirror I felt as if it wasn’t my own. But by the end of the week, I had improved so much. Closing my eyes, I would only sway slightly before my body realized where it was. I could even count upwards by 3s (to 15), 4s (to 24), and 11s (to 99). Before, I couldn’t do this without counting on my fingers. While these may seem like tiny improvements, these were huge improvements for my overall recovery.

Over the past 3 months that I have been home, I have continued my recovery at an affiliated facilitate in Massachusetts. As the weeks began to pass, we continued to see improvements. I was on a full-fledged AIP diet, taking supplements and completing a home program in addition to my treatments in the affiliated facility. I felt as if nothing could stop me and I was determined to share my story, so I decided to compete in the Miss Massachusetts USA pageant.

Okay, so that brings you basically up to date on how I got my 4th concussion and my road to recovery. This is in no way a full accounting of my concussions or recovery, but I hope that by sharing the main parts of my story that I will be able to spread awareness about concussions and prolonged recoveries!


Colleen, December 8, 2015
“Oh my goodness, I cannot believe all of the support I have received since posting my last blog. Thank you all for reading my story, sharing my story, and reaching out to me. It was my goal with this website, and sharing my story to raise awareness for concussions and prolonged recoveries. You all are so vital to that, so thank you for your help in spreading awareness!

So, now to today’s blog…over the past three weeks or so, my doctors have began to see me plateau and now, regress. At first, my improvements began to slow down, then all of my improvements stopped. Then, fairly quickly after my improvements stopped, I began to regress. My symptoms began to be more intense and some of my old symptoms began to emerge.

In the past 3 weeks, after 3 months of only having occasional headaches, I have not gone one day without one. I have been constantly exhausted, sleeping 12+ hours a night, I am constantly dizzy and nauseous, I have been losing control of the right side of my body, falling down the stairs, the list goes on and on. After months of improving, I thought that I was past all of these symptoms and I could focus on my cognitive deficits that my concussion caused. Now, it was as if I was going back 10 steps, not to square 1, but definitely back several steps.

It is so frustrating, just when I was getting back to a somewhat normal life, to be unable to have the energy to get through the day and be in constant pain. While everyday is a struggle for me, I want to do everything I can so that others do not have to go through the same thing (or at least know that they are not alone). Even though I just want to curl up in a ball of pain for the whole day, being able to share my story and help other people is what gets me through. Thank you for allowing me to do that. XOXO Colleen”

KARE 11 story New Prague girl hockey player

"NEW PRAGUE, Minn. - Kayla Meyer, 20, of New Prague didn't set out to be an advocate for concussion awareness.

By the time she was able to put on skates, Meyer set out to be a hockey player.

Kayla Meyer, 20, of New Prague didn't set out to be an advocate for concussion awareness.

By 2009, she played left and right wing for her high school hockey team. She suffered two concussions during two separate practices.

"I've been battling a constant headache ever since. I'm sensitive to noise, vibration, fatigue. I have difficulty falling asleep. I've just been on every medication," said Meyer.

"I couldn't play the sport that I loved anymore," Meyer said.

Since then, Meyer has worked alongside the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance. She testified on behalf of a Senate bill that increases concussion awareness among parents and coaches. The bill, which restricts when injured athletes can return to play, passed.

On Thursday, Meyer watched an early screening of the new Sony Pictures film, "Concussion."

Actor Will Smith stars as Dr. Bennet Omalu, a real-life forensic pathologist who investigates brain damage in former pro football players.

"It was phenomenal. I really, really enjoyed it," said Meyer.

"This movie is another good thing. It's another way to get the word out and to inform people [about concussions] and that's what I want most to happen," said Meyer.

Omalu will serve as the next Inspiring Minds Speaker for Beth El Synagogue in Saint Louis Park.

The event, in partnership with the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance, is happening on Thursday, February 25, 2016. It begins at 7 p.m. at the Beth El Synagogue, located on 5225 Barry Street West, St. Louis Park, MN 55416."

'Concussion' Raising Head Injury Awareness

Read more: http://www.kare11.com/story/news/2015/1 ... /77911816/

letter to editor ny times article

The Heart of a Head Problem

To the Sports Editor:

Re “A Sport Grows Bigger, Faster, Dire,” Dec. 20: Seth Berkman’s shocking concussion stories of elite hockey women misses the heart of the problem. Talented girls and young women pressure themselves to play through brain injury because they are keenly aware their hockey careers have a limited duration.

A significant absence for concussion recovery after age 12 is a near-sure career derailment, as slots on the best travel or national development teams are strenuously contested and strictly limited. Youth travel teams are completely unregulated in terms of concussions. High school teams must comply with state laws and state athletic association policies. Canadians may approach concussion safety more seriously, but they still compete for American college scholarships.

Policies should step in where girls and parents fail to appreciate the long-term health consequences.

DOROTHY BEDFORD, Valley Forge, Pa.
Read more: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/sp ... oogle.com/

Haley Wickenheiser
“If all you ever heard about concussions was what turned up in the sports news or highlight reels, you’d be justified in thinking that they mostly only happen to elite male athletes­, especially NHL players.

...Despite such evidence to suggest that men are the main victims of concussion, an unsettling body of scientific research reveals that the rates of concussion among female athletes are significantly higher than for male athletes. “What we know right now is that females are about two to three times more likely to have a concussion than males,” says Dave Ellemberg, a professor at the Université de Montréal, who has a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to study the effect of gender on concussion outcomes. There are also early indications that females might take longer to recover, and that their symptoms might be different from, or worse than, those experienced by males.

The problem is widespread: high rates of concussion in females are occurring at both the youth and adult levels, and across the sports spectrum.

...More surprising is the fact that females also have considerably higher rates of concussion in ice hockey—even though the sport is supposedly “safer” for them because bodychecking is prohibited in girls’ and women’s leagues. One recent study compared all injuries sustained by men and women playing National Collegiate Athletic Association ice hockey between 2000 and 2007. While concussion was the most common injury reported by both sexes, the average rate for males was .72 per 1,000 exposures, compared to .82 for females. “That is a huge difference,” says Dr. Edward J. Harvey of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal and co-author of the 2010 study, “because the men are trying to kill each other and the women aren’t supposed to be hitting each other.”

In fact, many experts wonder whether the ban on bodychecking may actually be contributing to the high concussion rate among females. Put simply, “Guys are trained to hit; girls aren’t trained to receive a hit,” says Harvey. “It’s obviously not a zero-contact league. It’s a light-contact league. And people do run into each other by mistake.” A lack of education on how to make and take contact properly can leave female players defenceless on the ice—and oblivious to the danger around them. Dr. Charles Tator, senior scientist at the Toronto Western Research Institute, adds: “Women can’t be lulled into thinking that just because they are not allowed to bodycheck that they’re not going to get concussions.”

Hayley Wickenheiser, the greatest female hockey player—she has four Olympic medals and the distinction of being the first woman to ever score in a men’s professional league—isn’t surprised that females get more concussions. “In women’s hockey, a lot of players skate with their heads down because they can. On the men’s side, when I’m playing I keep my head up all the time because I know I’m one hit away from a potential career-ending injury,” says Wickenheiser, who plays for the University of Calgary Dinos while completing her kinesiology degree. “On the women’s side, there’s no hitting so no one expects it. When it happens, often players are in a vulnerable position. So I think it actually increases the danger for concussions because players aren’t bracing for them.”

When athletes know a hit is coming, they instinctively tighten their neck muscles to offset the impact, explains Aynsley Smith, a native of Winnipeg who is now research director of the Sports Medicine Center at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “Picture yourself on the ice and then all of a sudden you don’t see it and you take a 100- or 50-lb. blow. Your head is going to spin like crazy.” Adding to that effect is the fact that female neck muscles aren’t usually as developed as those of males. “Certain researchers have said that the neck acts like a shock absorber [during] collisions,” says Comstock. A strong neck might mean less acceleration of the head, and therefore less brain injury.

...Admitting to pain, say some experts, is more common for females, and that might explain why concussion rates are higher—they are more likely to report symptoms and get diagnosed. “In our society, it’s more acceptable for a young woman to acknowledge that she’s in pain or that she’s been hit or hurt,” says Smith. But the opposite might be true, too: that girls face just as much pressure. “The truth is, athletes are athletes. You have to really work hard to get them to admit any symptoms, and that counts as much for female athletes as it does for male athletes,” says Ellemberg.

“They want to win, they’re competitive. They’ve been playing sports since a young age, and it’s their life and passion.” Adds Diane Wiese-Bjornstal, a researcher and professor at the University of Minnesota: “Over the last 10 to 20 years, women have spent all this time trying to prove ourselves worthy, that we can compete in the male domain. I get females all the time who say they hide injuries.”

The worst hit Wickenheiser ever took occurred while playing with the Swedish men’s team in 2008. For two weeks, she quietly endured dizziness, headaches and nausea, telling no one but her family. “Not my coaches, not my teammates. It was a unique situation: I’m the only woman playing professional men’s hockey in the entire world. I have a contract, I have my family there, my son’s in school. If it all ended, what are we going to do? I need to keep playing,” she recalls thinking. “You just have to be a pro and put it aside. It almost sounds barbaric to say that.”

...As for whether bodychecking should be allowed in female hockey, no one told Maclean’s that that’s a good idea. In fact, some advocated taking it out of boys’ hockey, too, leaving it to older or pro players. Wickenheiser, who stresses the importance of playing “heads up hockey,” says that proper bodychecking is a valuable skill to separate the puck from a player. But she doesn’t want to see it brought in either—there’s plenty of body contact today. “If you watch a Canada-U.S. game, you see a ton of great hits along the boards and lots of physicality.” In that sense, Wickenheiser says female hockey “is fine the way it is.” But in another sense, it could be better.”

Concussions: They’re Not Just For Men Anymore
Mounting Research Shows Concussion Rates Are A Lot Higher In Female Than Male Athletes—Even In ‘Safer’ Sports
http://www.macleans.ca/society/blindsided/

Paige Decker’s Concussion Blog
14. The Sports Neurology Clinic: Redefining Concussion Care <http://www.theinvisibleinjury.net/blog/ ... ssion-care>
http://www.theinvisibleinjury.net/blog/ ... ssion-care

Eliza Coupe
“Hockey practice turned out great. Hockey. Concussion. No pain no gain.”
Read more: https://www.instagram.com/p/_pMKVynI9Y/

3 more stories

“Dealt with concussion and post-concussion syndrome from last December to ...well still have some lingering issues. Make sure you fully rest! I didn't and I don't think it helped my recovery.”

“One year ago today. Know the signs.”
Read more: https://www.instagram.com/p/_A7bC8uBtK/ ... wntowndiva


Anne-Marie Zawadzki
“As someone who has been dealing with a concussion for over a year, I hope you rest and recover (sooner, rather than later).

I don't care about the dispute (re: who discovered CTE), I care about the people who are suffering and need proper help.

Interested to see where football and other sports will be in 10 years. Would like to see more help for people with PCS.

I hope people realize that the concussion issue goes beyond the field of play. The long term effects are crushing.

Was fortunate to see the Concussion Movie tonight. As someone with Post Concussion Syndrome it was very hard to watch.”

Read more: https://twitter.com/anmarzed



Carleton University Women’s Ice-hockey Team
“Hockey study shows even in Women’s non-contact University level hockey, concussion level hits are dangerously high; Developers of Shockbox Helmet Sensors discover.

With the recent NHL class action lawsuit alleging a lack of duty of care to hockey players at risk of concussion, leagues and teams face increased risks of liability. Reduced body checking exposure levels at minor league peewee hockey will not remove the risk of injury in what is still a contact sport. This study from Impakt Protective shows that head impacts in non-body checking games are still a major factor.

Earlier this year, the developers of the Shockbox Helmet Sensor presented their findings at the Ontario Medical Association Sport Med 2013 conference in Toronto, ON. A total of 80 direct helmet impacts were recorded across 19 players in a 3 month period. Over this three month period, a total of 4 concussions were reported by the team staff, for which all were recorded by the helmet sensors. One of the reported concussions was the result of a player collision, two were the result of a fall to the ice and the remaining was the result of a player and board collision. The application of helmet sensors in ice hockey games and practices has been shown to provide real time and longitudinal data on direct head impact exposure levels to ice hockey players.

The Shockbox technology has been extensively tested by third party researchers including the University of Pittsburgh Sports Medicine (UPMC) that treated NHL star Sidney Crosby’s concussion symptoms. The 1 oz Shockbox sensor wirelessly sends impact data to a smartphone when a player receives an “at risk” hit that may result in concussion. The helmet sensor has become a vital tool for concussion management in hockey teams. The NHL likely expected the latest lawsuit, especially after the $765 Million settlement by the NFL earlier this year. Occasionally lawsuits are raised in minor league against schools and teams and it may be an unfortunate litigation trend about to unfold in youth hockey. By educating players, parents and teams about concussions and by monitoring the level of exposure to head impacts, leagues may be able to reduce their liability risk. At the same time leagues may be able to sensibly respond to the current concussion crisis without eliminating the sport entirely, which would be a huge detriment to Canadian youth character development and physical exercise.

Shockbox Helmet Sensors In Women’s Hockey
Read more: http://minnesotahockeymag.com/developer ... ns-hockey/
Actual study: http://www.theshockbox.com/research-stu ... ns-hockey/