Monday, May 13, 2013

At a high school football game in my youth, I remember a football player being injured so severely that he was in a coma for some time.  I don’t recall whether he eventually recovered or not, but his injury made me aware, if only dormantly, that brains are delicate structures.  Traumatic brain injury almost seems to be epidemic, and despite the bicycle helmets we force our children to wear, we fail to protect them in the most one of the most obvious of ways: limiting their participation in sports where the incidence of brain injury is highest.  I understand that boys in particular love the macho feeling of hitting each other in football or hockey, but the price of a lifelong deficit from an injury in youth is almost not spoken of.  I had a young man in my office recently who has constant migraine headaches following Traumatic Brain Injury sustained in a hockey game 2 years ago.  I was told of a soccer player today that has been permanently removed from the game because of her recurrent brain injury.  In the past month in my circle of youthful friends, one was injured falling on the ice and another in a 4-wheeler accident.  I wonder if Muhammad Ali thought his Parkinson’s was worth it.  The brain-case is pretty tough, and while cracking the skull is possible and undoubtedly injurious to the brain,  the majority of concussions are from sudden deceleration.  The skull stops but the jello  inside keeps on going until it slams into the bony case.  A subdural hematoma, where blood from a torn vessel begins to compress the brain as it collects in the skull, is the life-threatening injury in the time soon after a trauma.  Subdural hematomas are relatively rare, but TBI  can have manifestations that occur later and can have life-long consequences.  Our returning soldiers have a high incidence of TBI from injuries sustained in explosions and spend months and years trying to overcome their injuries. These injuries can be cumulative and take a long time to heal.  We only get one brain and I figure I have been given more chances than I deserve healing mine.  I hope my grandkids can avoid the trauma in the first place.