Brain Injury Law Blog : Head Injury : Coma : Personal Injury : Las Vegas Nevada Lawyer & Attorney Tim Titolo

I was reviewing Feeds from the Center for Disease Control and came across this "Return to Play Progression."  Young athletes, as well as professional athletes, need protection while in the heat of the moment.  Coaches and Health Care providers can control crucial decisions as discussed below.

 Baseline (Step 0): As the baseline step of the Return to Play Progression, the athlete needs to have completed physical and cognitive rest and not be experiencing concussion symptoms for a minimum of 24 hours. Keep in mind, the younger the athlete, the more conservative the treatment.

Step 1: Light Aerobic Exercise
The Goal: only to increase an athlete’s heart rate.
The Time: 5 to 10 minutes.
The Activities: exercise bike, walking, or light jogging.
Absolutely no weight lifting, jumping or hard running.

Step 2: Moderate Exercise
The Goal: limited body and head movement.
The Time: Reduced from typical routine
The Activities: moderate jogging, brief running, moderate-intensity stationary biking, and moderate-intensity weightlifting

Step 3: Non-contact Exercise
The Goal: more intense but non-contact
The Time: Close to Typical Routine
The Activities: running, high-intensity stationary biking, the player’s regular weightlifting routine, and non-contact sport-specific drills. This stage may add some cognitive component to practice in addition to the aerobic and movement components introduced in Steps 1 and 2.

Step 4: Practice
The Goal: Reintegrate in full contact practice.

Step 5: Play
The Goal: Return to competition

The Center for Disease Control espouses that an athlete should be free of symptoms prior to being put back into play.  If symptoms are present, the athlete should not be put back into play for at least 24 hours.  A health care provider should carefully monitor the athlete after injury.

Online training for Health Care Professionals can be accessed here.  Health Care Professionals can access state, league, or sports governing body’s laws or policies on concussion.

Protecting our kids and teens from concussions should be a priority. Check out An International Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport: the 3rd International Conference on Concussion in Sport held in Zurich, November 2008.

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 Center for Disease Control Reports Increase in Traumatic Brain Injury Related to Youth Sports

The number of youth sports related traumatic brain injury has increased 60% in young athletes.  The report by the Centers for Disease Control attributes the increase, in part, to greater public awareness.

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) from participation in sports and recreation activities have received increased public awareness, with many states and the federal government considering or implementing laws directing the response to suspected brain injury.

Fellow Brain Injury Blogger, Michael Kaplen, reports on traumatic brain injury issues in athletes regularly.

Bicycling, football, and playground activities account for greatest increase

Emergency department visits for sports– and recreation–related traumatic brain injuries, including concussions, among children and adolescents increased by 60 percent during the last decade, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC experts believe much of the increase occurred because more adults realized the youngsters needed to be seen by health care providers.

Traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, rose from 153,375 in 2001 to 248,418 in 2009, said the analysis in CDC′s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Bicycling, football, playground activities, basketball, and soccer were the primary sports involved, the study said.

If you have a child playing sports in school, check to see if the coach has basic understanding of Traumatic Brain Injury Protocol.  Knowing when not to put your child back into play may be the difference between recovery and injury.

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 I previously posted about local neuropsychologists working on educating players and coaches about brain injury.  Now the CDC is working with the NCAA.  Check this post if you or someone you know is involved in contact sports.

As you gear up for the big game, look for a new public service announcement (PSA) for concussion prevention airing at NCAA tournament sites.

CDC and NCAA teamed up to create the PSA and other concussion educational resources, including a video for student-athletes, posters for every NCAA sport, fact sheets, and concussion management plans for medical staff. 

You can read more about the CDC Resources on Concussion in Sports with this link.

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 New research published this month in the journal Injury finds that while fatal cervical spine injuries to children in motor vehicle crashes are rare, they are more commonly seen in girls, in children who were restrained in passenger restraints, and in children who also suffered traumatic brain injury due to the crash (see also Pediatrics).

Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, The University of Pennsylvania and Ohio State University Medical Center studied 6,065 children younger than 16 years old and found that only 2.9% of the fatalities involved a cervical spine injury.

This study represents the first time a research team has used a linked version of two previously independent data sets from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) to enable in-depth analysis of the relationship between crash characteristics such as speed or vehicle type, and type of injury (including CSI) for fatally injured children. The two large national mortality databases used were the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and Multiple Cause-of-Death (MCOD) datasets.

 Read the entire article: "Research Consortium Advances Understanding of Cervical Spine Injuries in Children Involved in Motor Vehicle Crashes.(Report)." Health & Medicine Week. NewsRX. 2009. HighBeam Research. 11 Sep. 2009 <http://www.highbeam.com>.

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