Concussion

[Captain Scarlet]

Bernard Jackman here 25 concussions in his last year!

https://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/i-got-around-25-concussions-in-my-last-season-madness-41879748.html

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/2023/03/27/conversation-snedaker-has-inititated-on-female-concussion-demands-a-wider-audience/

Concussion a significant problem that goes under-reported in women's sport
Data suggests that in sports with similar rules female athletes sustain more concussions than their male counterparts



Denis Walsh
Mon Mar 27 2023 - 05:00

On the Super Bowl pre-game show, 10 years ago, the CBS announcer Jim Nantz inadvertently misrepresented a statistic about concussion in women's sport.

He said that "women's soccer players were 2½ times more likely to suffer a concussion than a college [American] football player".

The statistic that had slipped through his fingers was a straight comparison between women's soccer and the men's game, which only made it alarming in a different way.

The Super Bowl pre-game show has a huge audience and Nantz's gaffe caused a momentary spike in curiosity. Why would the numbers be different for women and men? Was it just in soccer? Where was the evidence, the research?







One of the people watching the show was Katherine Snedaker. A medical social worker, Snedaker was intimate with concussion and its complex aftermath. In her lifetime she had suffered multiple concussions, in different settings, but five years earlier, in 2008, one her sons had suffered a series of concussions that had caused him to miss nearly a year in school.

While caring for him she went looking for answers to questions that, to her surprise, weren't readily available.


[ Concussion in rugby: Amateur game must limit head injuries if it is to have a future ]

[ Concussion protocols: What if the opposition say it's not safe for your school's best player to play? ]

[ Report finds concussion most common injury in AIL and schoolboy Senior Cup ]

"I sought out concussion experts, emailed researchers and attended scores of medical professional conferences to find an alternative to the isolating prescription of 'rest until symptoms cleared,'" wrote Snedaker, years later.

Her search for knowledge brought her into contact with everyday ignorance: local GPs, teachers, sports coaches, didn't know nearly as much as they needed to.

Unwilling to just park her exasperation and walk away, Snedaker set up support groups for other parents, and "my quest to help my own child had now expanded to wider and wider circles of need," she wrote.

Snedaker soon became known as the "concussion Mom". What emerged over time was a pattern she didn't expect.

"Working in the clinics and talking to families, I began to notice young girls that weren't healing as fast as their families, friends and teachers felt they should. I founded a unique group for teens with PCS [Post-Concussion Syndrome] which ended up being all females."

Snedaker became immersed in the issue and the information deficits and the lives of girls and women impacted by concussion. Ten years ago, inspired by Nantz's misstep – and while she was locked in a battle with breast cancer – Snedaker set up a website where people could access the research she had sourced over the years.


From that seed, PINK Concussions grew into a non-profit, volunteer organisation founded on the mission to "improve the research, medical care and community care for females with brain injury".

Over the last decade Snedaker's campaigning zeal has persuaded more than 80 experts to join her professional advisory board, and amplify the issues at every opportunity.

On Thursday, she will host a 90-minute expert-led debate at the three-day World Brain Injury Conference in Dublin, exploring issues around concussion in women's sport that, over the years, have been harmfully neglected. What exactly does the data say, and what do we need to do about it?

"I have been waiting 10 years to have this debate," said Snedaker on a Zoom call last week.

"To try to push the envelope. Do we need a separate concussion protocol for women? We know from the research, for example, that a woman's menstrual cycle changes one way or another after a concussion. But sports doctors aren't gynaecologists, right?"


Kelly Catlin was a US track cyclist, who had been a three-time world champion and Olympic silver medallist. There were catastrophic gaps in her treatment for concussion prior to her sad passing. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
In the greater sensitivity around concussion in sport, and the heightened awareness of its dangers, the unthinking assumption would have been that it was the same for men and women. For many years, medical science would have done very little to challenge this notion.


A paper published three years ago by the British Journal of Sports Medicine showed that of 171 concussion studies conducted since 1967, only 1% of the research focused exclusively on female athletes, and 40% of the studies had no female participants. At the heart of this monumental imbalance was the unsafe, unscientific belief that there was no gender difference to consider.

By 2012 enough research had been done for the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine to issue an important position statement: "Recent data suggests that in sports with similar rules female athletes sustain more concussions than their male counterparts. In addition, female athletes experience, or report, a higher number and severity of symptoms, as well as a longer duration of recovery, than male athletes, in several studies."

If that's the case, why are the concussion protocols the same for women and men?

In mishandled concussion cases there are different outcomes. Occasionally – rarely – the outcomes are tragic.

In a brilliant and harrowing piece on CNN.com Amy Woodyatt shone a light on the lives and deaths of two young athletes who died by suicide, having suffered concussions that were not properly treated.

Kelly Catlin was a US track cyclist, who had been a three-time world champion and Olympic silver medallist; Ellie Souter was a teenage British snowboarder who had won a medal at the European Youth Games and had set her sights on the 2022 Winter Olympics. Catlin was 23 when she died; Souter had just reached her 18th birthday. In both cases there were catastrophic gaps in their treatment.



Katherine Snedaker: she has been a tireless, courageous, relentless pioneer on the issue of female concussion.
In Dublin on Thursday, Snedaker will present the PINK Concussion Sports Award to Neil and Morven Cattigan, whose daughter Siobhan suffered brain injuries while playing rugby for Scotland, and later died in tragic circumstances. The Cattigans' story has been covered with tenacity and tenderness by David Walsh in The Sunday Times since last summer.

"Siobhan Cattigan's life ended on November 26th, 2021," wrote Walsh recently. "Aged 26, she died after a relatively sudden and terrifying deterioration in her mental health. Her parents, Neil and Morven, believe the crisis that led to her death was caused by a traumatic brain injury suffered while playing rugby for Scotland. They have had no answers and little sympathy from the Scottish Rugby Union."

In the awards citation on the PINK Concussions website, Snedaker writes: "Siobhan's parents are fighting for the development of female-focused concussion educational programs, research and protocols. They wish that changes to how female concussions are handled with be Siobhan's legacy, so no other person will suffer as she did."

Snedaker has been a tireless, courageous, relentless pioneer on this issue. The conversation she has started is urgent and vital and needs an audience. There must be change.

[Mourne Red]

I've had about 5/6 concussions in last 5 years, previous one was especially bad was off work for 6 months with migraines/blackouts etc.. Pretty soft hit I got on the back of head going down to pick up the ball and just knew from the previous ones what had happened, stupidly played the rest of the match but then I was sick for days. Was still struggling few weeks later and went to hospital and was diagnosed with PCS (Post Concussion Syndrome)

Went for CT/MRI scans all came back that brain function was ok but was still getting the blackouts/migraines - Got some rotation examination done on my neck and consultant said had the rotation/flexibility of someone in there 50/60s, I was 28 at the time so not great news lol. Neck had completely stiffened from the concussion so that was the cause of my blackouts/brain fog etc. About 3/4 months of physio and started to feel ok again.

Still get the odd bit of brain fog but happens when neck gets tight or sit too long. Not currently playing atm (Partners ill do a year out) but consultant said one more concussion that I was to stop contact spot completely.

[Cavan19]

I've had about 5/6 concussions in last 5 years, previous one was especially bad was off work for 6 months with migraines/blackouts etc.. Pretty soft hit I got on the back of head going down to pick up the ball and just knew from the previous ones what had happened, stupidly played the rest of the match but then I was sick for days. Was still struggling few weeks later and went to hospital and was diagnosed with PCS (Post Concussion Syndrome)

Went for CT/MRI scans all came back that brain function was ok but was still getting the blackouts/migraines - Got some rotation examination done on my neck and consultant said had the rotation/flexibility of someone in there 50/60s, I was 28 at the time so not great news lol. Neck had completely stiffened from the concussion so that was the cause of my blackouts/brain fog etc. About 3/4 months of physio and started to feel ok again.

Still get the odd bit of brain fog but happens when neck gets tight or sit too long. Not currently playing atm (Partners ill do a year out) but consultant said one more concussion that I was to stop contact spot completely.

Thats not good you may hang up the boots its not worth it.

[Milltown Row2]

I've had about 5/6 concussions in last 5 years, previous one was especially bad was off work for 6 months with migraines/blackouts etc.. Pretty soft hit I got on the back of head going down to pick up the ball and just knew from the previous ones what had happened, stupidly played the rest of the match but then I was sick for days. Was still struggling few weeks later and went to hospital and was diagnosed with PCS (Post Concussion Syndrome)

Went for CT/MRI scans all came back that brain function was ok but was still getting the blackouts/migraines - Got some rotation examination done on my neck and consultant said had the rotation/flexibility of someone in there 50/60s, I was 28 at the time so not great news lol. Neck had completely stiffened from the concussion so that was the cause of my blackouts/brain fog etc. About 3/4 months of physio and started to feel ok again.

Still get the odd bit of brain fog but happens when neck gets tight or sit too long. Not currently playing atm (Partners ill do a year out) but consultant said one more concussion that I was to stop contact spot completely.

Thats not good you may hang up the boots its not worth it.

Was reading it and thinking are you just unlucky or going into tackles wildly?  Only one concussion from playing, full hurl contact on side of head, played on, but looked like I was drunk apparently

Yeah sport is great craic but if it has repercussions later in life its not worth that

[Mourne Red]

I've had about 5/6 concussions in last 5 years, previous one was especially bad was off work for 6 months with migraines/blackouts etc.. Pretty soft hit I got on the back of head going down to pick up the ball and just knew from the previous ones what had happened, stupidly played the rest of the match but then I was sick for days. Was still struggling few weeks later and went to hospital and was diagnosed with PCS (Post Concussion Syndrome)

Went for CT/MRI scans all came back that brain function was ok but was still getting the blackouts/migraines - Got some rotation examination done on my neck and consultant said had the rotation/flexibility of someone in there 50/60s, I was 28 at the time so not great news lol. Neck had completely stiffened from the concussion so that was the cause of my blackouts/brain fog etc. About 3/4 months of physio and started to feel ok again.

Still get the odd bit of brain fog but happens when neck gets tight or sit too long. Not currently playing atm (Partners ill do a year out) but consultant said one more concussion that I was to stop contact spot completely.

Thats not good you may hang up the boots its not worth it.

Was reading it and thinking are you just unlucky or going into tackles wildly?  Only one concussion from playing, full hurl contact on side of head, played on, but looked like I was drunk apparently

Yeah sport is great craic but if it has repercussions later in life its not worth that

1st one I got was done intentional, busted the fella earlier in the game because he took out a younger player then got me back.. rest just unlucky(falls/clash of heads), always happened against teams in yellow/blue jerseys so I just sat out those matches after the last one 😅 Have a wee girl and she's a couple of years from nursery football groups so will be coaching for me from now on I'd say. Get nagging from the other half when I mention going back so headache listening to her and risk of another knock on the head probably not worth it at all 

[Milltown Row2]

I've had about 5/6 concussions in last 5 years, previous one was especially bad was off work for 6 months with migraines/blackouts etc.. Pretty soft hit I got on the back of head going down to pick up the ball and just knew from the previous ones what had happened, stupidly played the rest of the match but then I was sick for days. Was still struggling few weeks later and went to hospital and was diagnosed with PCS (Post Concussion Syndrome)

Went for CT/MRI scans all came back that brain function was ok but was still getting the blackouts/migraines - Got some rotation examination done on my neck and consultant said had the rotation/flexibility of someone in there 50/60s, I was 28 at the time so not great news lol. Neck had completely stiffened from the concussion so that was the cause of my blackouts/brain fog etc. About 3/4 months of physio and started to feel ok again.

Still get the odd bit of brain fog but happens when neck gets tight or sit too long. Not currently playing atm (Partners ill do a year out) but consultant said one more concussion that I was to stop contact spot completely.

Thats not good you may hang up the boots its not worth it.

Was reading it and thinking are you just unlucky or going into tackles wildly?  Only one concussion from playing, full hurl contact on side of head, played on, but looked like I was drunk apparently

Yeah sport is great craic but if it has repercussions later in life its not worth that

1st one I got was done intentional, busted the fella earlier in the game because he took out a younger player then got me back.. rest just unlucky(falls/clash of heads), always happened against teams in yellow/blue jerseys so I just sat out those matches after the last one 😅 Have a wee girl and she's a couple of years from nursery football groups so will be coaching for me from now on I'd say. Get nagging from the other half when I mention going back so headache listening to her and risk of another knock on the head probably not worth it at all

Take up the whistle  Handy one, its like concussion without the long term effects

[Cavan19]

I've had about 5/6 concussions in last 5 years, previous one was especially bad was off work for 6 months with migraines/blackouts etc.. Pretty soft hit I got on the back of head going down to pick up the ball and just knew from the previous ones what had happened, stupidly played the rest of the match but then I was sick for days. Was still struggling few weeks later and went to hospital and was diagnosed with PCS (Post Concussion Syndrome)

Went for CT/MRI scans all came back that brain function was ok but was still getting the blackouts/migraines - Got some rotation examination done on my neck and consultant said had the rotation/flexibility of someone in there 50/60s, I was 28 at the time so not great news lol. Neck had completely stiffened from the concussion so that was the cause of my blackouts/brain fog etc. About 3/4 months of physio and started to feel ok again.

Still get the odd bit of brain fog but happens when neck gets tight or sit too long. Not currently playing atm (Partners ill do a year out) but consultant said one more concussion that I was to stop contact spot completely.

Thats not good you may hang up the boots its not worth it.

Was reading it and thinking are you just unlucky or going into tackles wildly?  Only one concussion from playing, full hurl contact on side of head, played on, but looked like I was drunk apparently

Yeah sport is great craic but if it has repercussions later in life its not worth that

1st one I got was done intentional, busted the fella earlier in the game because he took out a younger player then got me back.. rest just unlucky(falls/clash of heads), always happened against teams in yellow/blue jerseys so I just sat out those matches after the last one 😅 Have a wee girl and she's a couple of years from nursery football groups so will be coaching for me from now on I'd say. Get nagging from the other half when I mention going back so headache listening to her and risk of another knock on the head probably not worth it at all

Take up the whistle  Handy one, its like concussion without the long term effects

Anyone who referees must have got a bang on the head when they were younger !

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/2023/04/04/former-wales-rugby-international-dafydd-james-reveals-early-onset-dementia-diagnosis/
A group of ex-sportsmen and women taking legal action in the UK claiming they suffered brain injuries during their careers has grown to 380, with former Wales rugby union international Dafydd James among the latest to reveal he has been diagnosed with early onset dementia.
James, who won 48 Wales caps and toured Australia with the 2001 British and Irish Lions, is among a group of former players to join a lawsuit against World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union and Welsh Rugby Union.

[pbat]

Surely De Gea should have been removed for a HIA?

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/2023/06/03/david-corkery-i-feel-like-im-being-villainised-by-the-whole-rugby-community-because-im-taking-this-action/

"I had gone for all the other tests, but I wanted to be certain. I wanted confirmation that there were issues there. I wasn't going to do this [the class action] lightly. There are parts of my brain that are abnormal compared to the average person my age, as a result of impact. They can tell me that now. I have clinical proof that there is damage there.
"The doctor [in Birmingham] was able to show me the parts of my brain that had been injured through impact. I said is there any chance it could be genetics, or something else? He said, 'Have you ever been in a car crash?' I said no. He said, 'Did you ever fall off a horse?' No. 'It has to be rugby.'
"I was telling him about my emotions and he said 'That's the part of the brain that was damaged'. He said, 'See the red mark on the brain? That's where you're injured and this is going to have long-term effects'. He mentioned early-onset dementia. They can't predict when.
What I worry about now is not knowing my kids in the future
"They can slow it down with drugs, but these drugs are very much in their infancy. There are a couple of trials going on at the moment. I'm not going down that route. If they could say to me, 'Look, it's going to have no [adverse] affect on you, it will slow everything down, and you'll have a better quality of life,' then I probably would. But I'm not becoming what we were in the 1990s, which was guinea pigs for the professional game. That's what we were."
Was there relief in knowing? "There was, yeah. It's kind of sad to say, isn't it? But it's because you have an answer. The part of the brain that's affected relates to the feelings I have."

[seafoid]

There seem to have been quite a few ex players from that kind of era have got dementia.

(I suspect it's going to be a massive issue for rugby players in years to come too - look at Steve Thompson the english guy).

Especially rugby forwards.
I think Jeff Astle was one of the first soccer players linked to dementia.

[rosnarun]

There seem to have been quite a few ex players from that kind of era have got dementia.

(I suspect it's going to be a massive issue for rugby players in years to come too - look at Steve Thompson the english guy).

Especially rugby forwards.
I think Jeff Astle was one of the first soccer players linked to dementia.

Hardly suprizng  and there will be many more as Rugby now consists mainly of huge *** induced player running as hard as they can n to another ****  induced  monster.
Several unnamed player have taken cases agaon RFU . they will probably be bought off to stem bad Publicty

[imtommygunn]

I would honestly be surprised if Jonny Sexton doesn't suffer something in years to come as he has taken some hits over the years.

[seafoid]

There seem to have been quite a few ex players from that kind of era have got dementia.

(I suspect it's going to be a massive issue for rugby players in years to come too - look at Steve Thompson the english guy).

Especially rugby forwards.
I think Jeff Astle was one of the first soccer players linked to dementia.

Hardly suprizng  and there will be many more as Rugby now consists mainly of huge *** induced player running as hard as they can n to another ****  induced  monster.
Several unnamed player have taken cases agaon RFU . they will probably be bought off to stem bad Publicty

The collisions are insane given the size of the players and the lack of protection given to the head area.