Chris Henry had a progressive generative disease at time of death

I'm not blurring anything. I'm talking primarily about second-impact syndrome, which is the most important danger involved in allowing athletes to play with a concussion. It is an extreme risk not to be taken lightly, but it continues to happen.

The degenerative issue is a huge part of the problem as well, but that is more of an issue for doctors who examine athletes later. The primary issue during a game is to make sure an athlete with a concussion does not suffer a second impact.

To be honest, Bob, I wasn't thinking all the way down to the youth level, though the risk is there as well. Then again, the pressure to win and play athletes despite injuries isn't as great at that level as it is from high schools on up, so the issue of keeping an independent doctor around isn't quite as important.

 

OOP, if you don't think that winning is as important to many below the high school level, you've never been around youth sports. Most people have perspective, but some of these people are fucking nuts. And you have coaches who are more than happy to put their best players back in a game even if they have blacked out and are throwing up (which happened to a hockey-playing cousin of mine, whose concussions were so bad he could barely summon the brainpower to graduate from high school -- doctors had warned his parents that more hockey and concussions would do that, and they ignored him), and expanding on my parenthetical, parents afraid to sit their kids for fear that will blow his or her opportunity at a scholarship or a pro career.

Smash, the interesting thing with some many of these studies is that there is a specific protein in the brain that appears to make some athletes susceptible to bigger problems with concussions (Chris Henry had it, as did the Penn player who killed himself). You could almost see a day where kids are screened for this protein, and if they have it, they're held out of contact sports. I doubt that will happen, but who knows?

 

I said it isn't the same, not that the pressure didn't exist. We're talking about careers as well as competitive juices getting involved at the higher levels. Please try to read more carefully before you lecture me next time, ok?

 

OOP, my point was at the youth leagues it IS the same -- perhaps worse, because you have more parents who at that point still believe their kids is scholarship material. Look at the P-G link posted earlier for the story of the Pittsburgh doctor pressured by parents and coaches of the opposing team (the doc was there as a dad) to get him to clear a concussion-addled player back into a championship game -- for 6- and 7-year-olds.

 

I believe the rate of head injury is actually higher in youth sports for a couple reasons. One, the kids tend to get into more accidental collisions where they don't have an opportunity to brace themselves and are just clumsier in general, and two, their heads are proportionally larger than adults (kids skulls grow as they age, but not nearly as much as the rest of them).

Again, that's me trying to recall an article that's several years old.

But on many youth sports teams, particularly travel teams, the situation is much, much worse than it is on your average high school team. There's the pressure to play both to improve and advance levels and to get your (parents') money's worth out of the season, and the coaches are under huge pressure from the parents for the kids to win. Combine that with the complete lack of a trainer on most of those teams, and you've got a recipe for disaster.

 

The lack of any trainer is a huge problem. Sorry, but volunteer coaches don't have a career on the line. High school, college and pro coaches do (though granted, it is usually only a supplemental contract at the scholastic level). Not the same kind of pressure.

 

More on topic, Smash, I don't doubt that you are correct. The dangers are higher for younger athletes. Even high school athletes are more vulnerable than pros.

That is one reason why I am so concerned when I see something like what the Eagles did. A very large part of the problem is the culture, particularly in football. It needs to change because that trickles down to the youth levels. When young kids see an NFL linebacker knocked so silly he can't walk, then he comes back to play, they think they can do it. When they hear Hines Ward ripping his quarterback for admitting to having concussion symptoms, perhaps they think they should hide theirs.

It is getting better, but the process just isn't fast enough. And the NFL ignoring what the Eagles did certainly doesn't make it any better.

 

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10264/1089094-114.stm

Pennsylvania House Education Committee approves a bill designed to protect athletes who suffer concussions. Going to be interesting to see if it becomes law, and if so, how they enforce it.

 

They should just simplify it and say that if a player shows symptoms of a concussion, he/she can't return to the game. Let the evaluation happen in a doctor's office. Do not leave it to some crony on the sidelines.

 

An excellent policy. I know some individual schools have policies forcing an athlete to sit out until he or she is asymptomatic for a week to 10 days. Others, they cannot return until a week after their concussion tests match up to baselines taken as part of pre-season physicals. Either seems like a good bare minimum.