Showing posts from: July 2013
Talk about an example of endurance, here is the story (in story book form) of a Broken Arrow, Oklahoma cub scout with a head injury. He accidentally got an arrow pushed into his head but recovered from frontal lobe injuries during months of hospital treatment. “The Broken Arrow Boy.”
[http://www.brainline.org/content/2013/01/broken-arrow-boy.html]
Being one of the roughest of all children’s sports, it’s a rare parent who hasn’t had a boy who has been conked on the noggin hard enough to see stars, become dazed or actually go unconscious playing the game. YOU CAN’T DO THAT SO CHEAPLY ANY MORE!
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What has been a terribly understudied area of medicine is now slowly gaining momentum and can possibly save lives: Concussions, Head Injuries, Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
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Concussions are when a child’s head gets knocked around and causes their brain to be bumped back and forth against the hard skull. It always causes at least some tissue damage but children’s bodies being what they are, doesn’t always produce noticeable effects, at least not immediately.
Here is a fairly large collection of posts about the why’s and wherefore’s of the topic, which is receiving a whole lot of interest from the research community, including explanations, examples and even videos.
11 Posts in "Childhood Concussion" Series
- Childhood Concussion Series: Intro/Index – 23 Jul 2013
This Childhood Concussion Series has grown into a fairly substantial number of posts, probably because there's a lot of interest in researching this topic, not to mention it's our kids, right? There's not only explanations but videos and examples too!
- More dangerous than we thought – 24 Jul 2013
This article begins a discussion about children's concussions and how new research shows that they are more dangerous than we have thought even just last year. We'll even give (and show) real-life examples.
- New guidelines for sports – 27 Jul 2013
Let's attempt to explain children's sport concussion injuries and the dilemmas around diagnosis, treatment and prevention. We'll be taking about the new concept of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy as well as rules and regulations.
- Reading test a predictor of concussion – 30 May 2014
An interesting finding, if it pans out, is that simple tests (like reading) may be able to help diagnose childhood concussion and neurological impairment. That, of course, helps in treatment and rehabilitation.
- 10 scary issues – 18 Jun 2015
There are at least six scary issues about sports brain injuries and many of them involve player, coach, sponsor and even parent dishonesty, such as: denial, pressure to win, mis- or un-informed caregivers, legislation, return to play and repeat injuries (among others).
- Football and brain damage – 21 Aug 2015
This post attempts to explain football player's brains—well, as much as that is possible. Of course, that's in order to attempt to explain how they are injured and what happens when are. Sort of like an enigma wrapped in a mystery.
- 5 things to know – 12 Sep 2015
A concussion from a contact sport often leads to long term problems - many of which can be avoided if parents understood these five things before letting their children participate. Understanding these five things can help you make informed decisions about return-to-play after an injury.
- TBI, concussion and early nutrition – 28 Apr 2016
Here's an explanation of the "Cool Kids Brain Injury Nutrition Study" and the new things it has taught us about children who are injured playing sports receiving brain injuries.
- Video: Concussion 101 – 6 May 2016
This video is for kids and parents of kids who have had a concussion and explains in less than a few minutes the three important things to remember if you've had a concussion. It's when that awesome brain of yours gets bumped and thumped around a bit inside your skull and it's a lot more complicated than the doctors who took care of your grandpa or even your dad had any clue about.
- Video- concussion management – 30 May 2016
There is more new medical information about concussion, especially pediatric concussions, in the past 3 years than in the previous 10. We now know that it's much more complicated and substantial than we used to think and we're beginning to understand how better to treat children who've been injured. It's explained in this video.
- Helmits?! Do they prevent concussions? – 5 Apr 2017
What is a concussion? Probably not what you think it is. In this TED talk, David Camarillo (former football player now bioengineer) gives a lot of great information about concussions and how/why what we are doing to prevent them is letting us down. It's apparent that our safety standards bodies are also inadequate and are actually preventing new protective innovations. Watch with interest, then I'll explain the one weakness of his talk I'm disappointed in.
If you’re interested in reading about other childhood sports injuries, you may like: Common sports fractures.
Talk about proving the obvious, and then giving a lecture about it – lack of adequate sleep actually… wait for it… increases a teens risk of athletic injuries!
A study reported on at the National Academy of Pediatric Conference (Oct, 2012) showed that teens not sleeping enough had substantially more athletic injuries.
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Most of the time one of the best things new parents can do for at least their first child, even if they don’t know it, is to live near grandparents. I don’t mean in the same continent “near”, I mean close enough to babysit “near”.
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In our U S of A the problem with aids is less on most people’s mind these days than it was several years ago. That doesn’t mean that it still isn’t a whole lot on some people’s minds however.
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[A dentist desires contact for makers of the dental ID discs written about in a previous article.]
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[A reader desires the contact information for some dental ID devices.]
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Last week I described the problem of enuresis (bed wetting) — how it is fairly common (10-20 percent of seven year olds) and how there are a large number of contributing factors.
I have recently become aware of the statistic that approximately 3 percent of marine corps inductees have wet the bed within a year prior to their induction.
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If you are anything even close to me, there are a handful of types of unsolicited emails that you constantly need to delete as spam – one of them is the online pharmacies. Here is a web-site where you can check out any on-line pharmacy and report them if you’ve been scammed. (more…)
