Source: Orange County Register | By Brantley Watson | View Full Article
In recent years, much focus has been placed on safety in sports, especially in football. Concussions run rampant through the National Football League, and the league has put great emphasis on protecting its players.
Dr. Joseph Horrigan, a specialist in sports medicine, along with other specialists will anchor the "Coaches and Captains" lecture series which began Feb. 28 in Newport Beach, where they will discuss concussion prevention and treatment, as well as a myriad other topics.
We spoke with Horrigan about the importance of understanding what constitutes a concussion, how to treat them and most important, how to best detect them in youth athletes.
Q: Why have this series of lectures now?
A: The biggest reason is that there is an increased interest in concussions on a national scale, and a number of other injuries are getting more attention as well. ACL tears in adolescent female athletes are extremely disproportionate and there is a chance it could be related to their menstrual cycle. When we look at that, as well as football and concussions and dehydration, it all adds up to education and information. Rather than doing one topic, we're going to do a series of topics that informs coaches about a number of injuries.
Q: Is a high school kid having a concussion the same thing as say, an NFL player or an adult, having a concussion?
A: It's worse in high school because the brain is still developing. Younger people are also more at risk for a rare occurrence called second impact syndrome, which can be fatal. We see it mostly with athletes under the age of 25. In simple terms, the first concussion confuses the brain and the second can cause the brain to lose the ability to regulate its own blood flow. That can result in malignant brain swelling and death. So, part of why we wanted to include captains and key players is because what we see sometimes is a teammate thinks they're protecting their friends by not telling on them. But they're actually setting them up for more problems. We need to break through this idea in order to reduce concussions.
Q: How many concussions are occurring in sports on a yearly basis? Is it increasing, particularly in football?
A: The Centers for Disease Control (and Prevention) predicted the number of concussions to be close to 2 million per year but that's probably not accurate either. Reporting them becomes the issue. We need to look at the ways in which concussions are reported, such as implementing postseason questionnaires. A lot of kids have concussion symptoms all season and don't tell anyone because we've conditioned them to keep going. We have to change the culture a little bit because parents are becoming very alarmed.
Q: How quickly can these concussions be detected in our high school athletes? What can we do to catch them sooner rather than later?
A: The symptoms would be relatively soon. The only concern is, are we going to continue to teach them to say they're fine? If their grades drop, we clearly have a problem. If parents were to find their children are more emotional, have more mood swings, difficulty finishing their homework, they can't seem to read a page so they go back and read it again, these are not insignificant symptoms. Their brain has been traumatized. Also, in other sports, like soccer, the concussion rate is significant. It's higher in girls soccer and one theory is that because girls' necks are smaller with less strength, their heads whip faster and the brain bounces around in the cranium more. That's an issue. In any sport, football and soccer included, your neck needs to be strong.
Q: What is the key message that we need to get across to kids in order to help change the culture of football?
A: We need to get them to realize that concussions are real and have long-term effects. Most kids are not going to be NFL players of NCAA players. There is a lifetime of cognitive functions that they need.
*The second lecture will take place March 14. Thursday, Feb. 28 was the first of the six-part series.