Radar system and Georgia Tech engineers (from Wired)

This is not generally available yet, but engineers at Georgia Tech may have developed a simple way to diagnose concussion. If tests are as conclusive as expected, we may soon be seeing these devices on football fields and many other athletic events.

The test goes like this:  The person who received a head injury walks 20 feet away from a radar system (while reciting the months of the year backwards), then turns around and walks back. According to an article on Wired.com:

But why radar over other cognitive testing? The 10.5-gigahertz radar (similar to what might be used by a police officer or baseball scout) can measure certain properties relating to a person’s walking gait, like how their arms are swinging, how fast their legs move and the way their head bobs. Compare that to a database of previously recorded info related to normal walking motions, and you’ve got a quick and reliable measure of whether it’s neurologically safe for someone to go back in the game.

With the hits the NFL has been taking recently regarding its policy and response to players’ concussions, this system could be just the thing to save football’s reputation.

To read the full article, click here:  Wired.com

What do you call an activity requires strength, stamina, flexibility, agility, planning, and coordination with team members?  What if the participants were required to train with weight-training and aerobic exercises?  And what if that activity was performed in gymnasiums, in stadiums, and on outdoor fields?  And what if teams competed regionally and nationally?

That sure sounds like a sport to me. What would you call it?

Well, officially, cheer is not a sport. (And by the way, advocates now prefer the term “cheer” to “cheerleading,” mainly because the nature of the activity has changed almost to the point of being unrecognizable since the early days of pom-poms and calls of S-U-C-C-E-S-S.)  But in July 2010, U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill ruled that cheer is not a sport because it is “too underdeveloped and disorganized.” I’m not sure what he looked at to make his decision, but cheer is one of the most organized activities around–there are cheer squads in nearly every middle school, high school, and college…participants are taught and coached in standard moves…and the competition circuit is big business.

Why definitions are important

Whether cheer is defined as a sport or as merely an athletic activity has repercussions that go beyond ego. Sometimes it’s a question of available funding from colleges or sponsors, and sometimes it’s about reputation and respect–cheerleaders are admired, but rarely honored for their combination of brains and athleticism.

But even more important is how defining cheer as a sport would affect safety of the participants. A true sport requires coaches to have a certain level of training and certification; a “sport” puts limits on the risks required of the participants; and a “sport” makes training and safety an integral part of practice and performance. Unfortunately, in most schools, cheering lacks safety, limits, and trained coaches. That’s why cheer accounts for more than 65% of of all high school catastrophic injuries, and more than 70% of all collegiate catastrophic injuries. (For the record, “catastrophic injuries” are life changing events, including traumatic brain injury, paralysis, and death.)  Less severe injuries are also common–each year, this sport sends more than 25,000 female students to hospital emergency rooms.

A Cheer Advocate Speaks Out

In June 2010, we posted a blog that listed guidelines to help prevent cheer injuries, as recommended by Frederick O. Mueller, Ph.D., Director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). It’s a long list, so we won’t repeat it now, but you can read the full blog here: When Is a Sport Not a Sport?

After it was posted, we heard from one of the all-time great cheer coaches, Rusty McKinley. In his career, McKinley was Spirit Director at the University of Southern Mississippi, followed by eight years as Cheer Advisor/Coach at the University of Memphis. He authored two books:  The Complete Partner Stunt Book and NCA Pyramids. Currently, he is a nationally known and respected expert in the area of cheer safety. (I know he’s going to be embarrassed that I put it that way.) He was even one of the featured interviews in the cheer safety episode of the Emmy-nominated television show Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (season 8, episode 1: Cheerleading).

McKinley reports that the state of cheer safety is worse than most people think. He recently obtained the AACCA Certification–a safety certification from the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators. Sounds impressive, right? As McKinley said:

The entire course, 2.5 hours, is dedicated to walking you through the AACCA Manual and highlighting the areas that will be on the Open Book test that follows. No “hands on” experiences are required or tested in any fashion.  The periodic update requires 20 minutes online, again without hands on training or demonstrations.

McKinley has given us a wealth of information about the state of cheer safety, as well as some solid suggestions for how parents, schools, coaches and all the rest of us can help keep these athletes safe from traumatic brain injury and other catastrophes.

This is the first of a 3-part series we’re writing on cheer safety. Part 2 will be posted May 2, 2011 and Part 3 will be posted on May 9, 2011.

Meanwhile, if you have questions about cheer safety, please send them to our researcher, carol@lawmed.com. We’ll do our best to answer them online.

If someone you know has a cheer injury…

To report a cheerleading injury to make statistical reporting more accurate, go to www.cheerinjuryreport.com, sponsored by the National Cheer Safety Foundation. For more information about traumatic brain injury, or to request a legal consultation for a cheer injury, visit our dedicated web page.

If you have questions, HensonFuerst has answers.

Terry Bradshaw is one of the most celebrated football players in NFL history. He played 14 seasons as a quarterback with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He is a four-time Super Bowl champion–including leading the Steelers to their first Super Bowl win during Super Bowl IX. In 1996, he was voted into the Football Hall of Fame.

By all measures, Bradshaw has had a dream career.

But now, Bradshaw is setting the record straight, as that dream is slowly turning into a nightmare.

On a blog on MSN’s Fox Sports website, Terry Bradshaw himself wrote about his struggles with the aftermath of too many concussions. He is, as he says, “rehabbing his brain” on the advice of his doctors, trying to improve his hand-eye coordination (with a ping-pong table) and doing brain puzzles to keep his mind active. And he has decided to go public to potentially save the brains of the current generation of players.

I was a quarterback. I know how much my late center Mike Webster suffered. I can only imagine what a lot of defensive players from my era are going through. I’ve talked with Howie Long about this. He understands what I’m going through. I just thought it would good for them to hear what I had to say. I also think other players should speak up and say what they’ve been experiencing. It’s good for the soul and your brain.

Bradshaw talks openly about his memory difficulties…and about how he has reacted emotionally to his losses.

The memory loss made me jittery at times. It was driving me crazy that I couldn’t remember something that I studied the night before. All it did was trigger my anxiety and all of sudden everything would snowball on me. I know I have depression and it’s a horrible disease. This memory loss just made my depression worse.

Bradshaw has devoted his life to football. Even after his pro career was over, he was able to continue on as a sports commentator. More than anyone, football is in Bradshaw’s blood. Which makes it all the more remarkable that he is speaking out.

I know the NFL has done a lot to help us and also to improve the conditions for today’s players in regards to helmets and head injuries. But it’s nowhere where it needs to be…. I really think it is important for players to talk about what they are going through after their playing days are over.

He supports brain research, and he supports shedding light on the mystery of brain injury through science and communication, through players revealing how much they hurt and how they have been affected. With luck, Bradshaw be able to see changes in his lifetime.

Decades ago, everyone knew that boxers had brain problems from taking too many hits to the head. The average person called it being punch drunk. Doctors called it dementia pugilistica, or dementia of fighters. Now, we understand that permanent brain injury can happen to anyone who takes a lot of hits to the head–people such as football, hockey, soccer, and rugby players. In fact, the problem has gotten so big that a new term has been coined: Athletes’ Dementia.

The medical term for Athletes’ Dementia is chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

According to a Johns Hopkins Health Alert, the earliest symptoms of CTE are memory problems, disorientation and difficulty concentrating.

As chronic traumatic encephalopathy progresses, people begin to show poor judgment, erratic behavior, significant memory loss and some degree of Parkinson’s disease (impaired speech, difficulty with motor skills, slow movement and a loss of balance). In more advanced stages of CTE, patients experience tremors, full-blown Parkinsonism, a staggering gait, deafness and dementia.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is also commonly associated with psychological problems like depression, agitation, aggression and violence, loss of inhibitions, sexual compulsiveness, euphoria, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide.

Most of the time, the worst symptoms don’t appear until after the athlete has retired from professional play, and a 2009 study showed that the average lifespan of people with CTE is 51. Disturbingly young.

In February, we wrote about former football great Dave Duerson, who committed suicide. by shooting himself in the chest, not the head. That’s because Duerson’s final wish, expressed in his suicide note and in a voicemail message to his ex-wife, was that his brain would be given to the National Football League’s (NFL) brain bank.

The “brain bank” is the nickname of the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE). The CSTE was created in 2008 as a collaborative venture between Boston University School of Medicine and Sports Legacy Institute (SLI). Its is to conduct state-of-the-art research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Duerson shot himself in the chest so that his brain could be donated intact. (To read the full blog, click here:  Football Player Donates Brain to Research)

With a new name that is easier for the public to remember (and pronounce), Athletes’ Dementia will open the dialog about the long-term effects of sports on the brain–effects that previously had been underestimated. No doubt we’ll be hearing about dementia symptoms in players from a variety of sports. Let’s hope we hear about some real solutions and preventions before there are “brain banks” for all hard-hitting sports.