Can Special Helmets Help Detect Concussions?
Virginia Tech thinks so. So does the United States Army. But the NFL has yet to get on board.
Virginia Tech was the first football team to use the Head Impact Telemetry System, or HITS, in 2003, now marketed by Riddell Sports Inc. HITS is a web of sensors built into the padding of the football helmet which records every head impact. Any shock above a pre-set threshold tripped the team doctor’s beeper, alerting him to check the player for signs of concussion.
Though it can’t diagnose a brain injury, about 10 college and high school football programs currently rely on HITS, both as a concussion early-warning system, and as a way of tracking head hits during a football season. The Army even began using a version of the helmet-sensor system in Afghanistan in 2008, to detect battlefield concussions.
Unfortunately, the National Football League isn’t convinced that it works. They have yet to use any type of helmet technology to detect concussions for their players. For now, they continue to depend on team doctors and trainers to conduct an interview-based sideline test to determine if a player has suffered a concussion and can stay in the game.
The NFL wants to see results from ongoing tests comparing the accuracy of the various options before deciding which helmet-mounted system to use.
Concussion-detection methods, current and future
Sideline Concussion Assessment Tool, version 2 (SCAT2) – An interview-based test used by the NFL and others. Quizzes athletes about symptoms, memory, concentration, as well as checking balance and eye movements. The military version is called Military Acute Concussion Evaluation, or MACE.
Head Impact Telemetry System (HITS) – Uses helmet-mounted sensors and computer software to measure potentially harmful, concussion-causing head acceleration after an impact. Developed by Simbex, a New Hampshire company, and marketed by Elyria, Ohio, helmet maker Riddell Sports, Inc. Several colleges and high schools use HITS.
King-Devick Test – A visual test for dyslexia that is being evaluated as a concussion indicator. Requires athletes to scan and recite a series of numbers arranged on a page or computer monitor. Rapid, precise eye movements are necessary, which a concussion may impede.
Blood tests – Under development by the Cleveland Clinic and Banyan Biomarkers, a company spun off from University of Florida research. They hope to detect brain proteins that leak into the bloodstream when a head injury disrupts the brain’s protective barrier. Food and Drug Administration approval will be required.
Ahead System – A portable, hand-held brain wave detector and software under development by Maryland-based neuro-technology company BrainScope, Inc. Intended to quickly identify concussions by sensing whether the electrical activity in a patient’s brain is normal or abnormal. Being tested in various hospital emergency departments in hopes of winning FDA approval.
Concussions are very difficult to diagnose. Unlike traumatic brain injuries, where there is visible physical damage to the brain, the signs and symptoms to a concussion are subtle. Concussions are an uneven response to sudden acceleration, when some parts of the brain move faster than others, distorting the organ’s shape and disrupting its functioning.
If you have more questions or concerns regarding a concussion or traumatic brain injury that either you or a loved have experienced after an accident or injury, Missouri Personal Injury Attorney James Roswold may be able to help. Our experienced Kansas City Brain Injury Attorneys want to help your family get the compensation you deserve to help with your medical bills, therapy and other expenses.
To learn more, contact Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys toll free at 1-888-348-2616 for a FREE CONSULTATION. You can also download our FREE resource guide, “10 Essential Steps You Must Take To Protect Your Kansas City Injury Claim.”
Will a Helmet Protect Me While Skiing?
Of course. In most cases
, a helmet saves lives. It helps protect your head from a traumatic brain injury while driving a motorcycle, riding a bike, or while snowboarding or skiing.
However, despite wearing a helmet, Olympic Skier Sarah Burke, 29, died January 19 after a crash while training for the 2012 Winter Olympics.
Her helmet did not protect her from the freak landing of this halfpipe accident. The fall caused “irreversible damage to her brain due to lack of oxygen and blood after cardiac arrest,” putting her in a coma for nine days before she died.
The sport’s leaders say the sport is safe. Skiers wear mandatory helmets and air bags are used on the sides of pipes during practice. Everything was done that day to make Burke’s practice safe of injuries.
Burke’s death was a rare occurrence. It certainly draws attention to what every person needs to know when participating in winter sports. Whether for work or play, wear a helmet and do not perform risky moves. A bump to the head can result in a traumatic brain injury (TBI), which may not be easy to detect immediately. The pain is not immediate and is not recognizable as many injuries; TBIs can take days, even weeks to detect. If you are a sports enthusiasts heading to the slopes, remember to always include a helmet as part of your ski wear.
Do you or a loved one suffer a serious injury in an accident in Kansas or Missouri? Contact experienced Kansas City Personal Injury Attorneys James Roswold and Heather Lottman. With over 15 years of experience in Kansas and Missouri Injury Accidents, Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys may be able to help you determine the best way to proceed with your personal injury claim. Call our firm today to schedule an appointment to discuss the details of your case.
How Can I Prevent a Head Injury While Skiing?
If you are traveling to Colorado from Kansas City or Missouri to go skiing in the Rocky Mountains over winter or spring break, you might want to consider buying a helmet.
Everyone in your family should wear one.
It may not be the “cool” thing to do, but it could be the key to preventing a head injury on the slopes.
Nearly 20% of common injuries are head related injuries. And the leading cause of death on the slopes is traumatic brain injury, according to an Idaho Ski Patrol.
To help prevent injuries or death, wear a helmet.
The helmet needs to be specific to your sport. If you’re skiing, get a ski helmet. If you’re snowboarding, you need a helmet made for snowboarding. And they make snowmobiling helmets too.
Prevent a brain trauma from happening while you're skiing - wear a helmet.
You can’t wear a skiing helmet while you snowmobile or a snowboarding helmet for skiing.
Most importantly, the helmet should fit properly. It should be nice and snug. Buying a helmet for your child in hopes that it will last two years will not work. And lead by example. Parents should also be wearing a helmet to protect their heads too.
If you or a loved one has suffered a sports related head trauma or eye injury, the attorneys at Kansas City Personal Injury Attorneys may be able to help. If you need more information you can go to the
practice area, call 816-471-5111, or the “Just Ask” section of the website.
Research Shows Probiotics Help Traumatic Brain Injury Patients
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. The symptoms of TBI can be mild, moderate or severe depending on the extent of the damage. But, even symptoms of mild TBI can interfere with daily life and a victim’s ability to earn a living.
Researchers in China have determined that adding probiotics to a patient’s feeding tube may improve outcomes of their traumatic brain injury.
The leader of the study, Professor Jing-Ci Zhu, is from the Third Military Medical University School of Nursing. He and colleagues at the North Sichuan Medical College and Hospital in China said traumatic brain injury is associated with a profound suppression of a patient’s ability to fight infection.
The small scale trial had 52 patients who had suffered traumatic brain injury. They were being treated in the intensive care unit and those that received probiotics as part of their treatment had a reduced number of infections and spent less time in intensive care than those who did not receive the probiotics.
Probiotics are live microorganisms thought to be beneficial to the host organism and are found in yogurt and supplements.
The symptoms of traumatic brain injury may be mild, moderate or severe. They include the following:
- Headache
- Confusion
- Dizziness
- Lethargy
- Ringing in the Ears
- Blurred Vision
- Lightheadedness
- Fatigue
- Mood Changes
- Memory Loss
- Trouble with Concentration
- Behavioral Changes
- Vomiting
- Nausea
- Seizures
- Weakness
- Numbness
- Dilated Pupils
- Loss of Coordination
If someone you love has sustained a TBI in an accident, or from someone else’s negligence, in Kansas or Missouri, you may be eligible to file a personal injury case. You may be able to recover damages for medical costs, therapy, on-going care, pain and suffering, loss of earning potential and loss of quality of life. Contact the Kansas City personal injury attorneys at the Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to schedule a free consultation and to talk to a lawyer about your individual case.
Regular Soccer Players Should Stop Heading the Ball
A concussion is a violent jarring or shaking that results in a disturbance of brain function.
If heading the soccer ball is the strategy you use in the game, you may want to rethink your strategy.
A recent study suggests that repeated heading of a soccer ball increases the risk for brain injury similar to those seen in patients who experienced a concussion.
Heading the soccer ball once or twice a year will not make an impact on the brain. The research showed that excessive heading – over 1,300 times a year – seems to be associated with impairment of memory, attention, and planning, as well as visual and spatial reasoning.
The study, conducted by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center, used an advanced imaging technique on 39 amateur soccer players. The participants of the study, all in their 30s, had all played the sport since childhood.
The researchers asked the players how often they had headed a ball over the course of a year and then compared their brain images. Participants who had frequent headers showed brain injury similar to that seen in patients with concussions.
A concussion is a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)that often results after a blow to the head. Some signs and symptoms include:
- confusion, problems with routine tasks
- sensitivity to light and noise
- severe headaches
- mood swings; irritability
- loss of balance
- nausea/vomiting
A child who shows any of these signs or symptoms after a head injury should not continue to play or practice the sport until all symptoms are gone and the child has been medically cleared to rejoin the team.
If your child has sustained a traumatic brain injury or other head injury while playing school sports in Missouri or Kansas, you may have a negligence case. A Missouri personal injury lawyer can help. To learn more, contact the Kansas City brain injury attorneys to set up your free consultation or download our free resource guide 10 Essential Steps You Must Take to Protect Your Injury Claim.
Make Sure You Get Enough Oxygen if You Suffer a Traumatic Brian Injury in Kansas or Missouri
Hopefully you’re not one of the nearly two million people every year that suffer some sort of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Unfortunately, each year nearly 50,000 of those victims die because of that head injury. Among the survivors of TBI, another 80,000 are disabled for life.
Traumatic brain injury is a complex injury with a broad spectrum of symptoms and disabilities. Symptoms include:
• Headache
• Balance problems or dizziness
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Confusion
• Double or blurry vision
• Inattentiveness
• Loss of consciousness
• Memory problems
• Pressure in the head
• Sensitivity to light and/or noise
A recent study in the official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Neurosurgery, suggests that low oxygen supply (hypoxia) to vulnerable brain tissue is a major contributor to the risk of major disability or even death after severe traumatic brain injury.
Which means, make sure you or your loved ones get enough (or lots) of oxygen at the hospital when you’re getting treated for your TBI.
The study followed 103 patients with TBI. They monitored how brain hypoxia affected clinical outcomes. Forty-three percent of patients with low oxygen levels had poor outcomes. Those outcomes included death or survival with severe disability or in a vegetative state.
The greater the drop in brain oxygenation, the higher the risk of poor outcomes. The average length of time with brain hypoxia was 8.3 hours for patients with poor outcomes after TBI. For each additional hour with brain hypoxia, the risk of poor outcomes increased by 11 percent.
Patients with only 1.7 hours of brain hypoxia had good outcomes, which the study defines as survival with no or moderate disability.
If someone you love has sustained a TBI in a car crash, workplace accident or while visiting a public facility or store in Kansas or Missouri, you may be eligible to file a personal injury case. You may be able to recover damages for medical costs, therapy, on-going care, pain and suffering, loss of earning potential and loss of quality of life. Contact the Kansas City personal injury attorneys at the Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to schedule a free consultation and to talk to a lawyer about your individual case.
New Treatment for Kansas City Residents Suffering from TBI
The Institute of Medicine has released a new report about progress that has been made in treating Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) using Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy (CRT). Committee Chair Ira Shoulson (professor of neurology, pharmacology, and human science, and director of the program from regulatory science and medicine, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C.) said, “This report lays out a research agenda to surmount the short comings and challenges that have thus far limited our understanding of the full effectiveness of various forms of cognitive rehabilitation therapy in helping patients with different severity and stages of TBI.”
About 10 million people suffer from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) worldwide. From 2000 to 2010, the number of US military personnel suffering from TBI has almost tripled from 11,000 to 30,000. The wars in Iraqand Afghanistanhave been adding to the number of TBIs through roadside bombings and insurgent attacks.
Most TBIs are minor, however, whether minor or severe, recovery can take months or even years. Even then, complete recovery is not likely, especially in severe cases. The U.S. Department of Defense sponsored the CRT study to find out how effective Cognitive Rehabilitation Therapy (CRT) in the treatment of TBI is, so that they can properly decide how available the treatments should be and how to implement them in the military health care system.
People living with TBIs have a long road ahead of them because rehabilitation and reintegration into everyday life is a long-term challenge. TBI patients need effective health care infrastructure, evidence-based treatment and rehabilitation policies to cope with and care for their impairments.
There are different forms of CRT that vary according to the issues the patient is suffering from and the techniques used to treat those issues. Because of this there is a problem with assessing the effectiveness of the treatments. Even though it is clear that CRT is successful, Researchers cannot empirically classify the results. Their goals are to improve the way the data is collected and standardize a set of terms that practitioners treating TBI patience to use to describe the therapy used and the outcome.
Symptoms you should watch for if you think that you or a loved one might be suffering from a TBI are; headache, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness (even for very short periods of time), sensitivity to light and/or noise, balancing problems or dizziness, double or blurred vision, confusion, inattentiveness, memory issues, and pressure in the head.
If you or a loved one is suffering from any of these symptoms, you should immediately seek professional medical attention. If you do so, are suffering from a TBI and you need a trusted legal adviser, Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys may be able to help. Call 816-471-5111 for no cost or obligation to you or “Just Ask“.
Can Your Kansas City Child Recover from a Hypoxic Brain Injury through Hippotherapy?
The fact that brain injuries are serious business isn’t exactly breaking news. But did you know that sooner you get treatment for your brain injury the more likely you are to possibly stop any long term and permanent damage to your brain. Some children are getting a bit of a different type of treatment just by simply riding a horse. Crazy huh? but in some cases– it’s working.
It’s a new therapy called “hippotherapy”, however, is helping dramatically increase the chances for a child born with a severe hypoxic brain injury to recover motor functions and allow them to begin to lead the life of a normal child. Hypoxia is often the result of delayed treatment for babies when complications are misdiagnosed or missed altogether during the birthing process.
Hippotherapy puts the child on a horse and helps improve improve muscle tone, balance, coordination. Even if a child is having problems with muscle or speech development, simply riding a horse is proving to help rewire the brain in some cases.
As experienced Kansas City Brain Injury Accident Attorneys, we know that time is of the essence when it comes to head injuries, no matter how minor they seem, especially for children. Even the slightest bump to your head can cause your brain to shift abnormally and lead to long term brain damage and even possibly brain illnesses like Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS).
Any head injury checked out by a doctor immediately following because if you have sustained a traumatic brain injury it is important that it be treated right away. Sometimes, the results of a head injury won’t show up for several months and in some cases, years down the road– and as we’ve learned from this research, the sooner treatment begins the better chance you have at avoiding any long term and irreversible damage to your brain.
If you or someone you love has suffered a serious injury or a traumatic brain injury as the result of an accident in Kansas or Missouri, you may be entitled to compensation for your losses. Contact experienced Kansas City Personal Injury Lawyers James Roswold and Heather Lottman. With over 15 years of experience in Brain and Spinal Injuries including cases of TBI, we may be able to assist you and your family through this difficult time.
Contact Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to set up a free consultation to discuss your personal injury claim. You can get started today by downloading our free book, “10 Essential Steps to Protecting Your Injury Claim“. We want you to know your rights.
2011 Brain Injury Awareness Day in Washington Highlights Brain Injury Awareness Month
March 16, 2011 is Brain Injury Awareness Day, part of a month long celebration of Brain Injury Awareness. The focus of the event is rehabilitation.
The opening speaker was General Peter W. Chiarelli, Army Vice Chief of Staff and the moderator of the event was Bobby Silverstein of the Disability and Rehabilitation Research Coalition and former Staff Director and Chief Counsel, Senate Subcommittee on Disability Policy, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Guest Speakers included:
- Col. Jamie B. Grimes (Director, Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center)
- Kathy Helmick (Deputy Director, Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury)
- Patty Horan (Wife of Wounded Warrior, Army Capt. Patrick Horan)
- Dr. Lisa McGuire (Research Team Leader, Division of Injury Response, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
- Dr. Keith Cicerone (Director of Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation Psychology at the JFK-Johnson Rehabilitation Institute and New Jersey Neuroscience Institute, JFK Medical Center)
- Dr. Anne Forrest (Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor and Advocate, formerly Senior Economist at the Environmental Law Institute)
As experienced Kansas City Brain Injury Lawyers, we feel it is important for these types of events to take place. The field of brain injury diagnosis and treatment is constantly developing and advancing. Brain injury victims in Kansas City have been given a great deal of hope in the past year as several developments have helped establish hope in recovering from traumatic brain injuries.
1.7 million people in the United States suffer head injuries every year.
Every year 1.7 million people sustain a Traumatic Brain injury, many of them right here in Kansas City. Slips and falls as well as serious injury automobile and motorcycle accidents top the list of the top causes of brain and spinal injuries. The field of neuroscience has seen quite a leap in developments recently that have doctors feeling that long term damage can be prevented if not at least controlled to prevent some of the severe illnesses that can come out of a simple concussion.
Brain injuries affect everyone differently. A bump to the head for one person can mean nothing but to another it can lead to a life time of head aches, blurred vision and possible fatal brain diseases like ALS.
If you or someone you love has suffered a serious injury or traumatic brain injury in an accident in Kansas or Missouri, you may be entitled to compensation for your losses, including but not limited to lost wages from work, medical and doctor bills, not to mention legal fees. Don’t try and take on the insurance company alone, you need someone in your corner you can trust. Call experienced Kansas City Personal Injury Attorney James Roswold. With over 15 years of experience in Brain and Spinal Injury Accidents and Traumatic Brain Injury cases, we may be able to assist you and your family through this difficult time.
Contact Kansas City Accident Injury Attorneys to set up a free consultation to discuss your personal injury claim. You can get stated today by downloading our FREE book, “10 Essential Steps to Protecting Your Injury Claim“. We want you to know your rights.