Youth Football Participation Drops in Wake of Concussion Controversy

USA Football estimates youth participation dropped last year to about 2.82 million players from 3 million in 2011.  The NFL is backing a program called Heads Up Football to teach young players a tackling method aimed at reducing injuries.  Though praised by some, others call the program an NFL marketing ploy.  A USA Today article discusses the Heads Up Football program, and you can read the article here.

Previous Brain Injuries in Children May Prolong Recovery For More Recent Ones

Much has been written lately about the cumulative effect of brain injuries.  People who have suffered previous brain injuries are often more susceptible to injury if they suffer a later brain injury.  A new Harvard Medical School study shows that the recovery period for children who have suffered a brain injury can be tripled if they are re-injured within twelve (12) months.  You can read more here.

At Anderson & Boutwell, we represent people that suffer brain injuries caused by someone else's fault.

"Heading" Soccer Ball Can Cause Brain Injury

Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have found that repetitive "heading" of the ball in soccer can cause brain injury.  Diffusion tensor imaging ("DTI") studies showed that players who headed the ball more frequently have white-matter abnormalities similar to those who have suffered concussions.  You can read more on the school's website here.

Cognitive Reserve

By J. Thomas Anderson

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Traumatic brain injury is a lifelong disease and a dreadful one at that. Even mild traumatic brain injuries (TBI) reduce a brain's cognitive reserve, thereby reducing a person's resiliency following future insults, challenges, injuries, and exposing our clients to increased risk of dementing illnesses, such as Alzheimer's disease, at an earlier age. Cognitive reserve may be presented to the jury as a barrier against the loss of selfhood: in other words, the more brain you have and the more flexible that brain going into any future accident or old age, the better your outcome will be.  

The Cumulative & Compounding Nature of Trauma Events

By J. Thomas Anderson

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The cumulative and compounding nature of trauma events is well documented. Previous exposure to trauma signals a greater risk of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from subsequent trauma. Nevertheless, the defense bar may attempt to attribute your client's brain damage and/or PTSD to a prior wound or insult and thus not compensable in your case. Have none of it. The persistent effect, the chronicity if you will, of traumatic events to the brain and their relation to the rise of brain damage and/or PTSD symptoms following a subsequent aggravation is strongly established. 

CAT 1 -- MINDSTORM OF MISLEADING RATINGS

By J. Thomas Anderson

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Could numerical ratings mislead the insurance industry? Hurricane categories may be fair readings of one storm factor, wind, but that categorical ranking may be an irrational interpretation of an entire hurricane damage system. Just as the National Hurricane Centers (NHC) category system of rating a hurricane's wind power does not adequately prepare the public for the storm's effects, the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) system of rating a brain injury does not adequately rate the medical complications of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Neat little one to fifteen GCS ratings hardly tell the whole story of brain injury, as illustrated by the seventy-one common TBI symptoms listed below which are overlooked by the GCS rating system.

Levels of Traumatic Brain Injury

By J. Thomas Anderson

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The dangerous and subtle nuances of traumatic brain injury are just emerging in the collective public, legal and medical consciousness. In the past, mild concussions were not necessarily equated with traumatic brain injury (TBI), but with increasingly sensitive medical tests and public scrutiny of news from battle fields and playing fields, the understanding of a concussed brain is being expanded to include traumatic injury in all its forms. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury, caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head that can change the way your brain normally works. Concussions can also occur from a fall or a blow to the body that causes the head and brain to move quickly back and forth.