Smart Safety: Concussions and Sports, Part 1 - Introduction to the Issue

When it comes to sports, what your kids don’t understand is that in a couple of decades from now they will really feel the true impact of any soccer header or football hit. LA-area Jeff Victoroff, M.D. is a Harvard trained neurologist who directed USC's Traumatic Brain Injury/Neuropsychiatry Clinic at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center for more than a decade, is also an award-winning teacher of neurology and one of the five neurologists recruited by former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher to provide care for concussed, demented, former NFL players. He will tell you about his 10 years of brand new research and that the three concussion rule is wrong—no matter how the brain is rattled. It only takes one to impact your child’s brain forever. Concussive brain damage is not something that happens to a few unlucky children. And, tragically, repeated brain rattling is built into the rules of popular organized interpersonal violence.

I had a chance to interview him to learn more. His interview was lengthy, but I don't want to leave any of the important information out, so this will be part 1 in a series.

I am honored to have received your important questions. I will answer them. But first, allow me to mention that about 60 million youth are involved in organized sports every year--and 36% of children report multiple concussions by age 18 (Hirst et al., 2018). That's more than a third of U.S. youth. Since new research suggests that multiple concussions doom the brain to long term damage, we're facing a major public health crisis that nobody--including many doctors--wants to admit.
I can summarize today's dilemma in nine sentences:
The 20th century concept of "concussion" was ridiculous. Doctors claimed--with no proof--that the effects on the brain were temporary. That is not true. Yet, it's taking forever for modern neurologists to admit that they were wrong for 100 years.
Meanwhile, say your daughter gets her brain rattled playing a sport. She's still depressed and struggling with school a year later. Her board-certified fool of a doctor tells her, "It's all in your head." That not just wrong. It's cruel.
Educated mothers know this. They are getting angry. Soon, mothers of young athletes will save millions of American children from permanent brain damage by protecting their children and standing up for the truth.

Jeff Victoroff, M.D. is a Harvard trained, board certified neurologist and psychiatrist, also certified in Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry. He serves as Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC). He directed USC's Traumatic Brain Injury/Neuropsychiatry Clinic at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center for more than a decade. He is an award-winning teacher of neurology and the recipient of an award from the Brain Injury Association of America. He was one of the five neurologists recruited by former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher to provide care for concussed, demented, former NFL players. His new book, Concussion and Traumatic Encephalopathy: Causes, Diagnosis and Management, is available on Amazon and other fine booksellers.