from Mike and Joyce:
Allison Morris has been kind enough to share the following graphic with us, an online poster about the dangers of concussions.
The National Football League has been partnering with researchers to understand how a concussion injures the brain, and the long-term impact of this kind of injury. Professional football players in particular are prone to being knocked unconscious on the field, often with many other 250-300 pound players piled on top of them, and often more than once. What are the consequences of a series of concussions?
We also need to understand the gravity of injuries of this kind to teenagers in school sports, and to understand how to ensure that the injury heals properly.
If you break a leg, it’s pretty obvious — there’s a cast, and it is understood that you can’t get back on the field until the leg heals.
With a brain injury, the evidence of injury is much more subtle. There’s no cast to indicate that this player is injured, there may only be some fuzziness in comprehending, assembling information, or disruptions to one of the senses — taste, smell, sight or hearing may be affected. The person may feel sleepy all the time. These are very real indications that the brain is still injured and needs to rest, not get back on the field.
See also our interview with Dr. Ronald Glasser about his book on this subject, Broken Bodies / Shattered Minds
https://powerfulpatient.org//brain-injury-and-our-heroes/
Our thanks to Allison and to MastersInHealthCare.com for sharing this poster.
