House holds hearing on brain injuries in NFL
The House of Representatives is holding a hearing on “Legal Issues Relating to Football Head Injuries” that is being webcast on C-SPAN.org.
The witness list includes NFL commissioner Roger S. Goodell as well as the director of the players association, team executives, doctors, neurologists, retired players, families of former players and safety advocates.
Related
The New York Times: NFL Data Reinforces Dementia Links
‘Playing through’ concussions is damaging
HDNet’s Dan Rather reported on second-impact syndrome (see transcript here), the “concussion on top of a concussion” he said killed five football players last year. Some athletes may take a few days to heal from a concussion, others may take a few months. If an athlete returns to the field before his or her concussion is healed, Rather reported, the potential for further brain damage is greatly increased.
The report features Zackery Lystedt, a teen who suffered brain injuries in a football game in 2006. Tom Wyrwich of The Seattle Times also reported on Lystedt in his article about second-impact syndrome in November.
Rather reports that a just-released study by Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio found that 41 percent of high school athletes return to play too soon.
Related
- Football players hide concussions; increasing risk of injury, death
- High school players at risk of ’second-impact syndrome’
- NFL’s concussions expert sells equipment to league
- Tip Sheet: Concussions in young athletes
- Link: Sports Concussion Institute
- Link: University of Pittsburgh Sports Medicine Concussion Program
Report exposes failures of Army mental health care
This week on Salon.com, Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna are posting the results of their investigation into climbing “preventable death” rates among American soldiers. The reporters focused on the cases of soldiers in Ft. Collins, Colo., but also included the national implications of their findings. In January, they report, the army suspects more soldiers killed themselves than died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
Their findings are being published in a series called Coming Home:
“Salon put together a sample of 25 suicides, prescription overdoses and murders among soldiers at Colorado’s Fort Carson since 2004. Intensive study of 10 of those cases exposed a pattern of preventable deaths, meaning a suicide or murder might have been avoided if the Army had better handled the predictable, well-known symptoms of a malady rampant among combat veterans: combat-related stress and brain injuries.”
According to Benjamin and de Yoanna, many, if not all, of the deaths were preventable. They point to systemic problems with the military culture and the military standard of medical and psychological care as the root cause. The reporters said the Army’s mental health system had failed the soldiers, many of whom had returned from Iraq and suffered classic symptoms of chronic PTSD.
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Health Journalism 2010, AHCJ's annual conference, features a world-class program with story ideas, sources, stronger reporting skills, chances to meet newsmakers and network with other journalists.
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- AHCJ calls for better information from Joint Commission Web site
