San Francisco Giants Fan Sustains Brain Damage After Beating By Dodgers Boosters

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Posted on 9th April 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Modern sports tap into our tribal instincts. When your hometown team wins, your clan has won, has survived. Sports access deep, primitive, powerful emotions.

But that is no excuse to beat up a fan of a rival team.

Yet that is exacty what happened March 31 in a horrendous incident at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. During the season opener between the Dodgers and their archrivals, the San Francisco Giants, a Giants  fan dressed in that team’s “regalia” was attacked by two animalistic Dodgers’ fans.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/656969-when-it-stops-being-a-game-fan-violence-and-the-real-threat-to-sports?search_query=brain%20damage

The victim, 42-year-old Bryan Stow of Santa Cruz, Calif., sustained serious brain damage and was put in a medically induced coma by doctors. Published reports said doctors had performed surgery to remove part of Stow’s skull to relieve the pressure on his brain, which had swollen from his injuries.

The two sports savages that attacked Stow, a father of two, escaped. Authorities are offering a $100,000 award for any information about the attackers.

Let’s hope these two cowards, who reportedly attacked Stow from behind, are identified, apprehended, charged and convicted. 

And while they are in prison, we hope they are surrounded by Giants fans.   

Physicians, Coaches Form Concussion ‘Cooperative’ Group

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Posted on 3rd April 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Doctors, coaches, equipment makers and parents are teaming up to study concussions, forming the National Sports Concussion Cooperative, according to the Associated Press.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hHHTI5jvbKmb-iZEbP9yp6F_TAKg?docId=0864f199942d40ecab0196f8c01b3a52

The first meeting of the new group is set for May, with the American Football Coaches Association, the University of North Carolina’s traumatic brain injury research center, Rawlings Sporting Goods and the Matthew Gfeller Foundation among those participating. They are the founders of the group.

The Gfeller foundation was created by the parents of Matthew Gfeller, a high school student who died of brain injuries he sustained playing football in 2008. The North Carolina research center is named after deceased youth.

The concussion cooperative wants “to create a sort of clearinghouse for information on sports-related brain injuries,” according to AP.

The idea is to pool ideas and make suggestions for : guidelines for returning to a game after a concussion; coaching techniques; equipment design; and incorporating research into the process.

It sounds like a plan.   

 

  

Minnesota Twins Morneau Describes His Comeback From The ‘Fog’ Of Concussion

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Posted on 19th March 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Minnesota Twins first baseman Justin Morneau offers a marvelously articulate, and heartbreaking, account of the tough road back from a major concussion in an interview with ESPN.com. 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2011/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=6231869

The story is great because it captures the nuances of what Morneau, and thereby others who have suffered concussions, must endure. It’s been eight months since Morneau was hit in the head by Blue Jays player John McDonald’s knee, and he is making progress but is still on the mend.

In the story that was posted online Friday Morneau, who is obviously a bright guy, talks about the frustration of waiting for his brain to slowly heal. He admits to being an impatient person. So it’s hard for him to deal with the fact that a brain injury doesn’t have a timetable for healing the way a torn liagment or a broken bone does.

Morneau is also wise, as is the Twins management, in that he is not pushing himself too hard. He knows that could ulitimately hinder his recovery from his concussion.

He vents a bit about the fact that the most run-of-the-mill activities — watching TV, going to a movie — all stimulate your brain. And as Morneau says, “When your brain is working, it is not healing.”

Morneau made two other cogent points. He noted that the “culture of sports” is one of “gritting it out” and playing with an injury, which is not an option with a concussion.

And then Morneau talked about how he saw the world, as if in a “fog,” the first few months after he sustained his concussion.

“If you’re going 65 miles an hour down the road and you look out your side window, everything looks like it’s just going by so fast that you can’t really focus on it,” he told ESPN.com. “Then you look out the front window and you see everything clear.”

Morneau is at spring training in Florida, and he is playing ball. But he would be the first one to admit that he doesn’t know what the future will hold for him this season. I wish him well.   

 

Decade-Old Football Helmets Are On Their Way Out For Our Kids

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Posted on 12th March 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Parents who have kids who play football can rest a little bit easier: Manufacturers are going to stop refurbishing helmets that are more than 10 years old.

The New York Times reported that the trade association that monitors the refurbishing of old helmets, the National Athletic Equipment Reconditioners Association (Naera), on Thursday said it would no longer take helmets that were more than a decade old.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/sports/football/11helmet.html?scp=1&sq=Naera&st=cse

There is a rub. High school and youth football governing bodies only require that helmets pass a standard that has been set by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (Nocsae). According to The Times, that basically means that old helmets can be worn by young players, even if those helmets are really not protecting kids from concussions the way they should.

Schools can have their football helmets reconditioned on a voluntary basis.

So what’s the bottom line?

“Naera’s decision to reject helmets more than 10 years old will force organizations to choose between purchasing new helmets or putting youngsters in used helmets known to be less safe,” according to The Times.

In fact, the newspaper quotes some experts that believe now old helmets will be put out of circulation.

Naera is reacting to pressure that started when the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) began a probe of football helmet safety. And Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., also requested that the Federal Trade Commission investigate the two major helmet makers, Riddell and Schutt, for allegely making false claims about the safety of their helmets.

There has also been a call in Washington for a hearing on football helmet safety, including the use of old helmets, The Times reported.

Even though experts warn against the safety risk of using old helmets, the National Federation of State High School Assocations has lets schools decide what kind of helmets they want to use, including old ones. Why? New helmets cost more than refurbished ones. 

School budgets are getting cut these days, but someone better find the funds to pay for gear that protects our kids.    

Brain Seems To Believe Three Arms Are Better Than One, Study Says

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Posted on 26th February 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

In a fascinating piece of brain research, Swedish scientists have been able to convince people that they have three arms.

http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/24/6118219-need-a-hand-scientists-convince-people-they-have-3-arms

The new study consisted of five experiments on 154 men and women, and the research was conducted at  the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Scientists had the test participants sit with their right arm on a table, and their left arm hidden.

A prosthetic right hand was placed next to the person’s real hand, while a piece of material was draped over the participant’s right shoulder covering everything but the forearms of both the artificial and real right arms. If a test participant looked at their right hand, it looked like they had two of them.

In one of the tests, scientists stroked the fingers of the real right hand and the fake one at the same time with different paint brushes. During the test, participants were told to look at the fake hand. Afterward, the participants said they had felt like they had two right hands.

Scientists explained that the brain has the ability “to experience an extra third arm,” according to MSNBC.com. Even though we are born with two arms, the brain can easily be fooled into believing that its body has an extra arm.

Apparently, when the brain sees an artificial arm next to a real one, it wonders which one is really its. And what happens is that the brain accepts both hands.

This odd research may have a pracical application, according to MSNBC.com. 

“The findings, for example, may benefit stroke patients who need an artificial arm because one side of their body is paralyzed,” the website reported. “Scientists would better understand how patients can control this extra arm and experience it as their own.”  

  

Florida Youth Winds Up Brain-Dead After Soccer Accident

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Posted on 21st February 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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 Add this to the list of senseless deaths of kids playing sports like soccer. 

A youth who sustained a brain injured during a soccer game last week in Jacksonville, Fla., has been declared brain dead.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=191628

Josh Walter sustained traumatic brain injury during a soccer game last Tuesday at the Jeb Stuart Middle School and was air-lifted to get medical attention. Walter had remained in critical condition, and a test Sunday found he had no brain activity. 

He is being kept on a respirator so his family can donate his organs.

The website of his church, Highlands Baptist Church, said, “Please pray for the family and friends of Joshua Walter in his passing. Details will be added as we receive them. Thank you.”

http://highlandsbaptist.net/

 

The Bilingual Have The Edge In Staving Off Alzheimer’s Disease

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Posted on 19th February 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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New research has found that being bilingual can help delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Associated Press. 

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/18/v-print/2073892/speaking-2-languages-may-delay.html

The study was conducted by Ellen Bialystock, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto. Her research was sparked by what we know about babies, which is that just talking to them in two languages prompts them to learn both tongues in the time it takes most babies to learn one.

The belief is that the babies’ brains become better equipped to multitask. So Bialystock decided to look into the impact of knowing two languages on the elderly.

Her research involved 450 Alzheimer’s patients, who were all at the same level when diagnosed. Half of them had spoken two languages for much of their lives, while the rest only spoke one language.

The bilingual patients started to show symptoms of Alzheimer’s and were diagnosed with it four to five years later than those who spoke only one language, Bialystock reported at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Of course, being bilingual doesn’t mean you wanted get Alzheimer’s. But the belief is when you know two languages, the brain must always be working to inhibit one, and that activity helps keep you sharp.

Brain-Damaged Snowboarder Returns To The Slopes As An Observer

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Posted on 30th January 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Snowboarder Kevin Pearce is still on the mend from his traumatic brain injury.

Pearce, once a champion in his sport, is still making headway in terms of his recovery from his devastating accident Dec. 31, 2009. Pearce, now 23, was practicing a particularly tough move, a double cork, in Utah when he hit his head on the edge of a halfpipe. Even though he was wearing a helmet, Pearce sustained serious brain damage.     

 Last week he was in Aspen, Colo., longingly watching his friends and fellow snowboarders prepare for the Winter X Games. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/sports/28xgames.html?scp=1&sq=kevin%20pearce&st=cse

After his accident, Pearce spent a month in a hospital before being transferred to the Craig Hospital in Denve for rehabilitation. Last May he went to his parents’  Vermont home, where he is continuing his recovery.

Pearce has to wear eyeglasses now, or he sees double, according to The New York Times. He is apparently yearning to return to snowboarding, but has been told by his doctors that his brain injury recovery will take two years, not one year as Pearce expected.

It seems that common sense would dictate that Pearce forget about snowboarding. Let’s see if he’s learned any lessons from his horrific accident.

‘American Idol’ Contestant Moves Judges With Story Of His Brain-Damaged Fiancee

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Posted on 28th January 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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The American public in the past month has learned a lot about traumatic brain injury from press coverage of the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.  And they got more insight into the heartbreak of TBI this week from, of all unlikely places, “American Idol.”

In Milwaukee, “Idol” contestant Chris Medina drew tears, and made headlines, because of his unshaken love for his fiancee Juliana Ramos. The audience was shown photos of Medina proposing to Juliana, a stunningly beautiful young woman with huge brown eyes. He popped the question in the Starbucks where she worked.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20461214,00.html

But Medina  told “Idol” judges Jennifer Lopez, Steve Tyler and Randy Jackson that two months before his wedding date, Juliana was in a car accident. She sustained serious brain damage, and was in a coma for a month and a half.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/american-idols-chris-medina-danny-gokey/story?id=12776483

“Everything changed,” Medina said, a phrase that many a TBI survivor, or their family, has said.

Medina has not abandoned his fiancee, who is wheelchair bound now.

“I was about to make vows just two months from the accident — through thick and thin, ’til death do us part, for better or worse,” Medina said. “What  kid of guy would I be if I walked out when she needed me the most?”

For his audition Medina covered The Script’s hit “Breakeven,” and made it to the next round of the “Idol” competition in Hollywood.

Juliana was waiting outside the room when Medina was auditioning, and the judges asked to meet her. She is partially paralyzed, and looks like a shadow of the person in the photographs before her accident.  But the “Idol” judges warmly greeted her, with Tyler giving her a hug.

“I just heard your fiance sing,” Tyler told her. “He sings to you all the time. I could tell. That’s why he sings so good, because he sings to you.”

When Medina and Juliana left the audition room, she whispered something into his ear. Medina turned and said to the camera, “She said, ‘I knew it.'”

Some “Idol” fans and TV blogs are complaining that the show was exploiting Juliana by putting her on the air. But she is the face of TBI, and America should see it. Juliana should be “The American Idol.”

FDA Moves Closer To Approving First Alzheimer’s Detection Test For The Living

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Posted on 22nd January 2011 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee has recommended that the agency approve a scan that can detect plaques — in the brain of a live person — that are markers for Alzheimer’s disease, The New York Times reported Friday.   

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/health/21alzheimers.html?src=me&ref=general

The FDA typically heeds the advice of its advisory committees, which means that it’s likely that Avid Radiopharmacueticals will win approval to market the scans. According to The Times, certain plaques are considered a medical criteria for having Alzheimer’s disease. A person who loses his or her memory is not diagnosed with Alzheimers’s unless they have the plaques.

Previously, the only way to confirm that there were plaques in a person’s brain was through an autopsy. But the new scan will permit doctors to detect the plaques in the living.

Avid, a unit of Eli Lilly & Co., has a dye tht makes plaque visible during PET scans.

Even though the is no cure for Alzheimer’s, the new scan is considered an important tool to correctly diagnosing, and manage, a patient’s illness. Doctors would learn for certain if a patient’s memory failure and other cognitive problens were being caused by Alzheimer’s or another type of disease, or from a stroke.

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