"As public awareness of CTE research has grown, there has been a decline in participation in youth and high school tackle football and a rise in participation in flag football."

...Thirty years ago, through the winter of 1994-95, the NFL began its slow transformation into the very different game that is played today. Reacting to serious concussions suffered by several of the league’s star players, including Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, then-league commissioner Paul Tagliabue took a big, if seemingly begrudging, step. Despite describing concussions as merely “an occupational risk,” he created a brain injury committee. 

Since then, dozens of new rules, new equipment, and stiffer penalties have been put in place, all with the intention of trying to reduce the number of concussions players sustain...

...In recent years, much of the public pressure for change has built because of research out of the CTE Center, under the direction of Ann McKee, a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor. McKee has previously said she was a “lifelong football fan,” but she now views the game as dangerous and says that “football damages brains, and young brains especially.”..

https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/research-on-cte-changed-the-nfl/

Las Vegas high school football fields flagged for fouls #artificialturf

LAS VEGAS, NV (KTNV) — High school football players at several local schools are finding one of their toughest opponents isn't the one lining up against them it's the one under their feet.

13 Investigates digs up some serious safety problems with area football fields.

From Pop Warner to the NFL, there's serious talk about concussions and brain injuries. They're re-designing helmets and re-writing the rules of the game to protect players. But what good is all that when the very field your child is playing on isn't safe?

"My concussions had gone up 300%. I think we had like 15 concussions last Fall," says Gabrielle Crawford Rancho High School's assistant principal and athletic director.

"All this stuff just started unfolding like a puzzle that's been waiting to be played," says Ms. Crawford. "And I don't think it's right it took this long."

Rancho's football field is artificial, completed in 2007 by a company called FieldTurf. But the Rams can't even use it this season.

https://www.ktnv.com/news/investigations/high-school-football-fields-flagged-for-fouls?fbclid=IwAR182odppA13aaeSK6bedy7L5GKHbT4VfLe-QD2KYNYyKhb0E3ZE4aROqPk

High school football concussion risk greater for young athletes and on turf

BOSTON — Concussion risk in high school football is greater for younger players and on practices on [Artificial] turf-based surfaces, according to a study presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting.

The epidemiological study examined high school football concussion data in male players aged 14 to 18 years at 1,999 U.S. high schools. Scott Burkhart, PsyD, and colleagues collected data between 2012 to 2017 using the Rank One Health Injury Surveillance Database, a software used for mandatory and voluntary student-athlete injury documentation.

“While concussion prevention efforts like education and safe tackling appear to be working in high school football, it may be advantageous to provide more sports medicine coverage at more vulnerable time points like freshman and JV football,” Burkhart told Orthopedics Today. “Further, data supports reducing practice exposures on turf-based surfaces may lead to lower concussion incidence.”

The study included nearly one million male athletes who played football. Researchers recorded a total of 14,103 concussions in this group, accounting for 6% of all injuries in high school sports and making this the largest epidemiological high school football concussion study to date.

Rates of injury decreased from 2012 to 2016 in both practices and games. Burkhart noted injury proportion ratios decreased by year from 2012 to 2016 with an increase in 2017. He added that more concussions occurred in games (51.8%) than during practices (48.2%).

“No matter how we looked at this – whether it was injury proportion rates, overall incidence rates or risk ratios – you can see significant difference from games to practices,” he said at a presentation at the ASSOM meeting.

Turf outweighed all other mechanisms of injury, including helmet-to-helmet and grass. Almost 90% of all injuries occurred on turf-based surfaces, according to Burkhart...

https://www.healio.com/orthopedics/sports-medicine/news/online/%7B095e875c-8c2c-4f31-8340-b0aaf576a4ce%7D/high-school-football-concussion-risk-greater-for-young-athletes-and-on-turf?fbclid=IwAR0y5Vd5ESFL5gGVqF-f9QDlmSvyRzVGgIOfIZ1z0le3icly9_CQryt01UI

One Football Rule Change Might Lower Concussion Risk

Article by Dennis Thompson. Full article here. En Español aqui.

TUESDAY, Oct. 2, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- The most dangerous play in football can be rendered safer through a simple rule change, a new study out of the Ivy League suggests.

Moving the kickoff line forward by just five yards -- from the 35- to the 40-yard line -- reduced the average annual concussion rate in Ivy League football by more than 68 percent, the study revealed.

That change makes players less likely to run the ball forward, eliminating the potential for high-speed collisions during kickoff returns, said study author Douglas Wiebe, director of the Penn Injury Science Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

"At the end of the day, the results are really quite compelling," Wiebe said.

Kickoff returns account for more concussions than any other play in football.

In 2015, kickoffs accounted for 6 percent of all plays during a game but 21 percent of all concussions in the Ivy League, the researchers said.

The findings were published online Oct. 1 as a research letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about sports-related concussions.

SOURCES: Douglas Wiebe, Ph.D., director, Penn Injury Science Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Bernadette D'Alonzo, MPH, clinical research coordinator, Penn Injury Science; Kristen Dams-O'Connor, Ph.D., director, Brain Injury Research Center at Mount Sinai, New York City; Michael Stuart, M.D., co-director, sports medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.; Oct. 1, 2018, Journal of the American Medical Association, online

What can family medicine providers learn about concussion non-disclosure from former collegiate athletes?

Researchers examined why concussion symptoms often go unreported, in  a scientific study conducted by Elizabeth A. Beverly, Todd R. Fredricks, Andrew Leubitz, Benjamin R. Oldach, Daniel Kana, Michael D. Grant, Jonathon Whipps, and Emily H. Guseman. The researchers identified 3 themes as to why. Full article is here.

Theme 1: Concussions are part of the game

Participants in all 7 focus groups recognized the frequency and seriousness of concussions. Interestingly, most participants believed that concussions were inherent in sports, particularly for collision sports and high contact sports like football, soccer, ice hockey, and rugby.

“It almost seems like part of the game. It's like yeah, you're playing football. You get hit. It hurts. You've got to be tough.” (Focus Group 6, Male ID 30)

Theme 2: Hiding concussion symptoms

Participants in each focus group discussed hiding concussion symptoms in order to avoid being taken out of or missing games. Some participants withheld information from coaches and trainers while others misrepresented or fibbed about their concussions.

“I’d say we’d all experienced it at one point or another. And I remember actually one guy specifically saying like, ‘Oh, did you see the black shiny stuff?’ I was like yeah. He was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ And that was that. We just kept playing, but I never told coaches or trainers or anyone. I guess I thought that if I did, then they were going to make me come out of the game and stop playing. And I felt like I needed to be there and I was still able to do it well enough to be in there. So I was like, oh man, I don’t want to come out because if I do, then I might have to miss the rest of the game. I was like well, I’ll just tough it out and see what happens. Hopefully, I’ll make it the rest of the game. I did so.” (Focus Group 6, Male ID 30)

Theme 3: Misconceptions about concussions in low contact sports

While all participants were familiar with the incidence of concussions in sports, many did not understand that concussions could occur in any and all sports. Some participants felt that concussions were limited to only collision sports or high contact sports. Further, athletes in low contact sports or sports with minimal physical contact with other athletes (e.g., tennis, track and field, swimming) who experienced concussions, attributed their injuries to personal clumsiness rather than their sport.

“I ran into someone head-on and we were both like sprinting and I had a headache. No one told me I had a concussion, I didn’t want to go to the trainer … but I was really confused. I had a really bad headache the whole week and I just had trouble thinking and stuff … That’s why it’s really embarrassing, because who does that?” (Focus group 3, Female ID 14)

Abstract
Background
Despite the risks, concussion symptoms often go underreported by athletes, leading to delayed or forgone treatment and increased potential for concussion recurrence. One of the most serious long-term consequences of sports-related concussions is Chronic Traumatic Encephelopathy (CTE), a disorder associated with progressive neurological deterioration. The purpose of this study was to explore former collegiate athletes’ understanding of concussions and motivations behind concussion non-disclosure in order to better assist family medicine providers in screening for and managing a history of concussions.

Methods

Informed by the theoretical framework Social Cognitive Theory, we conducted focus groups with former collegiate athletes using a field-tested discussion guide. Discussions were transcribed, coded, and analyzed via content and thematic analyses using NVivo 10 software.

Conclusions

Family medicine providers as well as coaches, athletic trainers, teachers, and parents/guardians should reinforce the message that concussions can occur in all sports and inform patients about the signs and symptoms of concussions. Further, providers should ask all patients if they engaged in high school or collegiate athletics; and if yes, to describe their hardest hit to their head in order to obtain a complete medical history. 

Whitman parent to Board of Ed: ...THEORETICAL RISKS and objections being perpetrated by a small group of detractors...concussion GMAX misinformation...#zeolite #donotinhale

The first person listed to speak to the Board of Education this evening during public comment is now a Whitman High School parent who calls concerns about zeolite "theoretical" and refers to "concussion GMAX misinformation."  

Whitman High School parents want a plastic grass field using the experimental infill of zeolite. 

Board of Education member Patricia O'Neill represents the Whitman Cluster and is up for re-election this year.  She will be counting on campaign contributions from this community.  No need to guess how the Board of Education will vote this evening, we are calling it a yes for zeolite!  

Just remind the children to not inhale (that's the caution from the Material Data Sheet from the very company that will be supplying this product) when they use the Whitman HS football/soccer/lacrosse field or any of the other 7 fields that will be using zeolite.  

   2018 Whitman Zeolite Andrew Hosker by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland on Scribd

Concussions in Teenagers Tied to Multiple Sclerosis Risk

From the New York Times, October 18,  2017, reporter Gretchen Reynolds. To read the full story go here.

Here’s yet another reason to protect young athletes from head trauma: A large-scale new study found that concussions in adolescents can increase the risk of later developing multiple sclerosis. The risk of multiple sclerosis, or M.S., an autoimmune nervous system disorder with an unknown cause, was especially high if there were more than one head injury.

The overall chances that a young athlete who has had one or more head injuries will develop multiple sclerosis still remain low, the study’s authors point out. But the risk is significantly higher than if a young person never experiences a serious blow to the head.

The drumbeat of worrying news about concussions and their consequences has been rising in recent years, as most of us know, especially if we have children who play contact sports. Much of this concern has centered on possible links between repeated concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a serious, degenerative brain disease that affects the ability to think.

But there have been hints that head trauma might also be linked to the development of other conditions, including multiple sclerosis.

Howard County High School disbands its varsity football team

Centennial High in Howard County will disband its varsity football team, citing a “lack of sufficient players and concern for student safety,” according to a news release from Howard County Public Schools...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/highschools/centennial-high-school-disbands-its-varsity-football-team/2017/08/18/f9275c3a-8480-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?utm_term=.4d15a5761699#comments

Concussion testing no longer mandatory for Howard County public school athletes

For the first time since 2010, student athletes participating in high school athletics in Howard County this fall will not be required to participate in ImPACT concussion baseline testing.

This testing will now be conducted on a voluntary basis, still available to any athletes who choose to participate in the program — which is designed to provide tangible data to help determine when it is safe for an athlete to return to play in the event of a head injury.

Howard County has long been considered ahead of the curve in concussion prevention and detection. Former county athletic coordinator Mike Williams began counting concussions in 2007, documenting 72 that school year.

Then prior to the fall 2010 season, with certified athletic trainers in place at all 12 public high schools and the ImPACT concussion management system already adopted, the county made it mandatory for athletes participating in contact sports to undergo a baseline test prior to tryouts. The testing was optional for non-contact sports such as cross country, golf, indoor and outdoor track and tennis.

Initially, Howard County was the only county in the state making this concussion testing mandatory. In 2011,Carroll County followed suit in requiring students playing a contact sport to take a memory and mental agility test that could be used as a comparison point in an instance where a concussion was suspected...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/sports/ph-hs-concussion-testing-no-longer-mandatory-20170727-story.html

This case concerns FieldTurf’s numerous broken promises made to their customers regarding an artificial turf product it launched in 2005, which it advertised as revolutionary and more durable than anything on the market. These were lies.

Another government body stands up to protect citizens and children from defective artificial turf.  This is the same artificial turf that is currently in use at Walter Johnson High School and Richard Montgomery High School, and was just removed from Montgomery Blair High School.

Remember in Montgomery County, MD we are progressive, and progressives do not enforce warranties or care about defective products from no bid procurements.  

   Hudson County Complaint by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland on Scribd

A roundtable discussion at UCLA shed some light on the current state of concussion research and how we can better educate people on the risks.

In 2015, a Sports Illustrated article profiled the deaths of 11 high school football players.

Five of the deaths were due to severe blows to the head. And as recently as November 2016, a 15-year-old Texas football player died after suffering a head injury while playing football.
"There are about 1.3 million high school and 2.8 million youth football players in this country. That's more than 4 million children and teenagers playing football," Ralph Nader and Kenneth Reed wrote in a Chicago Tribune op-ed. "Compare that number with the 1,700 or so adults playing football in the NFL. Yet, the nation's focus, when it comes to concussions, is on the NFL. That needs to be flipped."...

http://www.upworthy.com/the-latest-thinking-on-contact-sports-concussions-and-the-risk-to-our-youth?c=sr1&s=p&sr_source=lift_facebook

Guest Post: What a Concussion Looks Like on Artificial Turf

Nebraska QB Tommy Armstrong Jr. taken off on stretcher after landing on head yesterday.  

Watch in the video to see his head bounce off the artificial turf.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nebraska-qb-tommy-armstrong-jr-taken-off-on-stretcher-after-landing-on-head-015415759.html

Nebraska QB Tommy Armstrong Jr. taken off on stretcher after landing on head sports.yahoo.com NOVEMBER 5: Tommy Armstrong Jr. #4 of the Nebraska Cornhuskers is looked at by trainers from Ohio State after being injured on a tackle in the second quarter against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium on November 5, 2016 in Columbus, Ohio. Armstrong Jr. was taken off on a cart and did not return

The 2014 field replaced a June 2007 defective Duraspine field. FieldTurf Duraspine is the same type of field at Walter Johnson, Richard Montgomery and Montgomery Blair high schools. 

FIELDTURF RE-USED THE OLD INFILL IN THIS "NEW" FIELD!!  Here's a story and video that documents it:

http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/052314aab.html

OhioStateBuckeyes.com VIDEO: Ohio Stadium FieldTurf ... www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com - Three turf fields - Ohio Stadium, the Woody Hayes Athletic Center indoor field and one outdoor field at the WHAC - will receive new FieldTurf surfaces this spring ...

“If I dump crumb rubber on a parking lot, I can get it to pass a G-Max test,” #FieldTurf #crumbrubber

Civic Group Concerned That Richard Montgomery High School’s Artificial Turf Field Failed Safety Test

...“If I dump crumb rubber on a parking lot, I can get it to pass a G-Max test,” Teeter said. However, he advised against adding significant amounts of rubber to fields because doing so can cause traction issues that can increase the risk of injuries to ankles and knee ligaments. The rubber also can wash away or be tracked throughout the surrounding environment, leading to environmental concerns if it enters local waterways. Teeter said the Richard Montgomery field should be replaced "in the near future."...

http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/Web-2016/Civic-Group-Concerned-That-Richard-Montgomery-High-Schools-Artificial-Turf-Field-Failed-Safety-Test/

ABC7: Are Montgomery County synthetic turf fields safe for play?

BETHESDA, Md. (ABC7) — Concussions, fractured skulls, broken bones, even death: these are the concerns a trio of civic organizations have raised about the synthetic turf field at Walter Johnson High School.
In 2010, crews installed the faux grass field at the school located roughly half-a-mile east of the Montgomery Mall. However, over time, activists contend the synthetic grass has shed, effectively reducing the once thick green blades to short stubble.

http://wjla.com/news/local/turf-field-issue

BCC Football to use Dangerous WJ Field. #gmax #concussions #WhoCares?

...The construction work means the B-CC Barons will lose their football field temporarily. This fall, home games will be played at Walter Johnson High School, about 5 miles away in Bethesda...

Construction at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School Relocates Portables: Football team to play home games at Walter Johnson

WJHS story picked up by USA Today: Are the lack of standardized shock absorption rates in artificial turf leaving teens at risk of head trauma? #artificialturf

For years, the assumption was that artificial turf surfaces were better in every way for athletes. They allowed for better footing in adverse weather like extreme rain or wintry mix. They provided more cushioning in a drought than hard pack natural surfaces. What wasn’t to love?
Now there may be an answer to that question: The lack of standardized shock absorption rates may in fact leave a number of artificial turf surfaces at high schools far more dangerous than their counterparts in professional and collegiate settings.
This excellent investigative piece from Forbes‘ Mike Ozanian found that the G-MAX testing numbers — the standardized measure to test shock attenuation performance of both natural and artificial surfaces, as Forbes puts it...

http://usatodayhss.com/2016/are-the-lack-of-standardized-shock-absorption-rates-in-artificial-turf-leaving-teens-at-risk-of-head-trauma

Bang to Rights: Science is taking big steps toward understanding the impact of concussion

From The Economist:

FRED McNEILL, an American-football player, died in November at the age of 63. Between 1974 and 1985 he appeared for the Minnesota Vikings. After leaving them he became a lawyer but in later years suffered from dementia and was told that he had signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease. His recent death has become a milestone in the understanding of brain disorders, for post-mortem examination has confirmed this diagnosis—retrospectively making him the first person to be so diagnosed while alive.

And:

Suffer the little children

In the end, adult athletes can make up their own minds about what risks they wish to take. Children, though, cannot. It is therefore children who should attract the greatest attention. Not only are some children obliged to play contact sports at school, but they may also be participating in an environment that encourages a “stiff upper lip” when they are injured. Yet it has been clear since a study published in 2012 by Andrew Mayer at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque that subtle brain changes in children who have sustained a concussion persist for months after the injury, even when there are no longer any obvious symptoms.

Work published last December by Charles Hillman of the University of Illinois found that children who had sustained a single sports-related concussion still had impaired brain function two years later. Ten-year-olds with a history of concussion performed worse on tests of working memory, attention and impulse control than did uninjured confrères. Among the children with a history of concussion, those who were injured earlier in life had larger deficits. This study was small (it involved 15 injured participants) but if subsequent research confirms it, that will be great cause for concern.

Concussion—once an invisible injury—is rapidly being illuminated. Many sports-lovers have been disturbed to learn that injuries on the field have caused their heroes to undergo profound personality changes. And many parents now worry, with good reason, about their children playing sports. Taking one for the team is all very well. But the price of doing so may be paid over a lifetime.

To read the complete article go here.

Part 2 - Whitman HS to take part in research study of concussions

If a picture says a thousand words - a video provides a million.

Here is the video from Fox 5 showing the concussion research device that may be tested at Whitman HS.







Did you catch the principal on the clip as saying he is concerned about concussions because fewer kids are coming out for football. Gee, Dr. G - I hoped that you would be more concerned about the health of your students.

Don't Let Kids Play Football

Opinion Piece from Dr. Bennett Omalu in the New York Times. Omalu is the Chief Medical Examiner of San Joaquin County, California, and an associate clinical professor of pathology at University of California, Davis.

We are born with a certain number of neurons. We can only lose them; we cannot create new neurons to replenish old or dying ones.

and:

Over the past two decades it has become clear that repetitive blows to the head in high-impact contact sports like football, ice hockey, mixed martial arts and boxing place athletes at risk of permanent brain damage. There is even a Hollywood movie, “Concussion,” due out this Christmas Day, that dramatizes the story of my discoveries in this area of research. Why, then, do we continue to intentionally expose our children to this risk?

If a child who plays football is subjected to advanced radiological and neurocognitive studies during the season and several months after the season, there can be evidence of brain damage at the cellular level of brain functioning, even if there were no documented concussions or reported symptoms. If that child continues to play over many seasons, these cellular injuries accumulate to cause irreversible brain damage, which we know now by the name Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or C.T.E., a disease that I first diagnosed in 2002.

Depending on the severity of the condition, the child now has a risk of manifesting symptoms of C.T.E. like major depression, memory loss, suicidal thought and actions, loss of intelligence as well as dementia later in life. C.T.E. has also been linked to drug and alcohol abuse as the child enters his 20s, 30s and 40s

To read the whole story go here.

Trouble in the Turf: Lack of synthetic turf testing & maintenance puts athletes at risk

...Despite the sales pitch, synthetic turf is not maintenance-free and can pose a heightened risk of serious injury if not properly maintained. 

13 Investigates discovered some artificial turf fields in central Indiana receive little or no safety testing after they are installed, and even those that do receive routine maintenance can easily fall below basic safety standards designed to keep athletes safe...

13 WTHR Indianapolis