Chris Henry had a progressive generative disease at time of death

This should be an across-the-board rule. At high school games, an independent medical professional should be on the sidelines testing for these sorts of things. I've seen too many times where the "trainer" or whoever the hell else is on duty, gives the O.K. to send kids back in the game when they've clearly had their bell rung.

 

I've had 10 certified concussions, so I know of what I speak.

I had 3 while playing HS football. I suffered 1 in pregame warmups, and played TE the entire game. Between the huddle and the LOS, I had forgotten the play call and the tackle would have to tell me. I was even crying at times, because you lose the ability to filter your emotions. Coaches didn't care, cause I was the only TE worth a shit on the team.

Another time I had a concussion suffered late in the game. It wasn't until the bus ride home that my coach realized I was mumbling nonsense. He had the bus stop at the hospital. I was given a ton of shit for that by my teammates for the rest of the season.

Despite the 3 concussions in HS FB, I never missed a game. (Well, not do to head injuries; ankle sprains were another story).

20 (ahem some odd) years later and I show no linger effects, knock wood.

 

Really begs the question - how did you get the other 7 concussions?

 

No offense, but as you progress in age this could be a real problem.

 

1 was a childhood accident, 1 was a car wreck, 1 was intramural game, and the rest happened when I was cycling racer.

Ya think? That's why I'm regularly checked out by a neurosurgeon.

 

I agree with this in principle, but who are you going to convince to pay for that?

 

You find a way for the important things. Kids have died because of this. Kids have been crippled. It is time to stop fucking around.

I do get fired up about this stuff. Part of that is because the problem has touched so many former Steelers, so I see guys I used to root for either dead before their time or damn close to it.

We just assume that NFL players have the best care available to them, but sometimes bad decisions by teams get in the way. Go look up stories about Merril Hoge when he went to the Bears. They never took proper care of him after he suffered a concussion, so he played with it. A second blow to the head nearly killed him and left him with some brain damage. Eventually, he recovered, though the long-term effects could be a problem.

The situation with the Eagles' linebacker is particularly disturbing. There is no excuse for having a guy who can't even walk off the field being cleared to play in the very same game. None. And the NFL hasn't said a word about it, which is even more disgraceful.

 

oop - "Find a way" will not convince the school board in my area to pay for certified trainers at every game and practice of every team, let alone bring in independent medical professionals. I think it's ludicrous. They say they can't afford it.

Also, is there research that shows proper treatment after concussions effects this potential progressive side effect? My understanding was it was the sheer number of concussions over a lifetime, not number in a given time frame.

There are, obviously, possible disastrous side effects of a second concussion too quickly after a first one. But I don't know that they deal with this long-term condition.

 

True dat. At the youth level, you're told pretty much to look for symptoms of a concussion, and if you have the least bit of suspicion, you hold someone out. If you're fortunate, you'll coach a team that has a doctor as a parent, although even if you, because that parent is a doctor, there's a good chance that parent will be off treat other people.

It would be prohibitively expensive to hire a trainer or physician for every team in every league at every level. Parents wouldn't be able to afford the signup fees.

 

Tell it to the next parent whose kid is crippled or killed by suffering a second blow to the head while trying to play with a concussion.

Smash, the issue isn't the number of concussions in a certain period of time. The issue is coming back to play before one has properly healed. No way in hell somebody should even play a week after suffering a concussion, much less in the same game. Ever. No matter how mild it is.

Any trainer worth a damn will tell you this. Unfortunately, some schools have one that isn't worth a damn. I know mine did when I played high school football. The one time I suffered a concussion, she didn't even bother to talk to me. I couldn't even walk a straight line and they let me back into practice. The scary thing is shit like that still happens 20 years later.

 

OOP, can the sanctimony, especially directed at me. I've got four kids in youth sports, I've coached for the last six years, and I'm an official member of the National Association of Youth Sports Coaches, which represents all that is fair and good in youth sports (that's a paraphrase). In most youth leagues, you're lucky to get enough non-sex offender coaches to volunteer, much less have a full medical staff on hand for 4- and 5-year-old soccer. Most youth leagues and school sports are living on the edge of their financial teeth to begin with. If you want a full medical staff around to give baseline tests, you would have to charge so much you may as well just shut down the program.

The most important thing now on the youth level is to teach coaches the basic symptoms of a concussion so they can take a player out, and take that players to his or her parents or guardians so they may take the child into a physician for an evaluation. It would be great if a physician or trainer were at hand (although as you've already stated, the chances are even that you won't get one who is worth a damn -- so what is the point of trying to hire one for the seemingly infinite number of youth leagues out there?), but a lot of problems are eliminated right away if the league trains the coaching staff to recognize concussion symptoms and take them seriously.

 

First of, Bob is expanding on the point I was trying to make. We can make all sorts of points about the ideal situation, but there are a lot of schools that would love to have a trainer, any trainer, present at every event, let alone a full, independent medical staff. Like Bob says, in situations like high school and youth sports, you really need to rely on the coach to recognize the potential danger involved because that's probably the only constant presence across levels, classes and income brackets.

And OOP, you're still blurring the lines between two distinct concussion issues. One is second-impact syndrome, which is rare but exceedingly dangerous and why most sports leagues now have mandatory periods of sitting out after a diagnosed concussion.

The second is this degenerative condition which has been linked to a history of concussion but also non-concussion impacts. IIRC, there was a very good New York Times article that pointed to the collision of linemen or the jarring motion of a tackle as things that caused the brain to absorb a lot of impact, and the doctor speculated that could be more dangerous long-term than one big, concussion-style impact. He had some sort of impact meter installed in the helmets of a college team.

The message I took away from that article was that to attribute the degenerative condition in the brains of some boxers and football players to concussions is really short-sighted, that the sports themselves involve a degree of impact that could lead to this condition without the athlete necessarily having a history of concussions. It's a much more sobering thought, actually.