This is a story about athletes and concussions. When you read that sentence, what picture popped into your mind: 250-pound football players… or 10-year-old girls with ponytails? According to research published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, the severity of symptoms after a concussion is–in part–dependent on the age and gender of the patient. [...]
For Eastern Oregon University student and softball pitcher Holly Martin, February 25, 2010 was both the luckiest and unluckiest day of her life. On that day, she suffered a life-threatening, life-changing head injury. Given the reported lack of care she received after the injury, Holly was lucky to survive. According to an article in an [...]
Junior Seau was a star. He was the kind of football hero that put butts on couches and raised Sunday TV ratings. Junior Seau died on May 2 of an apparent suicide. In echoes of the suicide of another former NFL great Dave Duerson, Seau killed himself with a shot to the chest, presumably because [...]
Ray Easterling, former player for the Atlanta Falcons, died Thursday at age 62 of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to an article in The New York Times, Easterling was part of a group of former NFL players who sued the league, claiming that it had failed to treat players for concussions, and for attempting [...]
After a head injury, patients face numerous physical and emotional challenges. During and even after hospitalization, there are many medical decisions that need to be made as part of treatment. But the very act of making decisions is a problem, according to research published in the April 11, 2012, issue of the medical journal Neurology. [...]
There are two new and wonderful resources about concussion. You know we write a lot about mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI), and it takes a lot to impress us, but these resources are truly special: One is a physician-developed smart phone app designed to help coaches, parents, and athletes recognize and assess concussion; the other [...]
About 18 months ago, we wrote with great excitement about the National Football League (NFL) and the new attention they were bringing to the crisis of concussion. The 2010 football season began with new concussion awareness posters in the locker rooms. As quoted in The New York Times, the Baltimore Ravens’ center, Matt Birk, said: [...]
Thomas Henson Jr., managing partner of the catastrophic injury and complex litigation division of HensonFuerst Attorneys, spends much of his time focusing on cases involving traumatic brain injury, catastrophic personal injury, and spinal cord injury. He has personally represented hundreds of people—children and adults—with every type of brain injury, including concussion, coma, and brain bleeds. Henson [...]
Patrick Donohue’s world is defined by two things: His daughter, Sarah Jane, and numbers. When Sarah Jane was five days old, her baby nurse shook her violently, causing four broken ribs, two broken collarbones, and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). That injury sparked the interest in numbers. According to an article in Utah’s Deseret News, [...]
From the time he was 3 days old, the Golden Retriever named “Tuesday” has been trained to be an assistance dog. These days, he is fulfilling his doggie destiny by helping Captain Luis Carlos Montalvan, a 17-year combat veteran who served two tours in Iraq, earning the Combat Action Badge, two Bronze Stars, and the [...]