Brain injury, or concussion, is in the news almost daily nowadays. The more severe brain injuries, such as in our local boxing champion Andy Ganigan, can occur in and out of the sports arena, and the results are easy to see. More subtle mild brain injury, like sports concussions, make the injuries harder to identify.
After the NFL granted researchers at Boston University $1 million to study the brains of athletes who die after concussions, the NFL is being sued for negligence in protecting NFL players from the sequelae of brain injuries on the field. This is due to overwhelming evidence that even mild concussions cause far more severe problems than could be previously proven. These concussive injuries to athletes’ brains, young and old, cause acute and chronic problems that persist and even worsen later in life — even without another brain injury. This is common in many sports.
The recent deaths of Junior Seau and, last year, the NFL’s Dave Duerson and the NHL’s Derrick Boogard, may help us understand these devastating injuries further. When the brains are made available for biopsy, the findings are shocking. Injuries that used to be brushed off as just a "ding" are now being taken far more seriously.
As a ringside physician for professional world championship and amateur boxing, as a football doctor on Hawaii island and Oahu, and as an Olympics physician, I have seen and cared for many sports concussions. As a former director of The Rehabilitation Hospital’s brain injury program, as physician founder and board member for the state Traumatic Brain Injury Advisory Board, and as physician for Hawaii’s first Concussion Care Centers now, I continue to care for injured athletes and strive to educate the people supervising these athletes.
I am saddened by the recurrent news of the results of brain concussion, but am encouraged by the efforts in Hawaii and nationally to study this devastating injury.
Educational efforts involving the coaches of our young athletes in school are ongoing. Back in 1990 in Sacramento, I was involved in legislation requiring athletic trainers, physicians and ambulances at every football game. We also required coaches to undergo training in the care of sports injuries, especially concussions.
New legislative attempts in Hawaii include requiring expert evaluation and treatment of athletes before return to play, requiring helmet use in activities such as skateboarding, and requiring basic education of coaches and others supervising our student athletes. So much more needs to be done. I have been involved recently in educating physicians at Castle and Straub hospitals on concussion in sports and plan more talks as the football season approaches.
The seriousness of these injuries is demonstrated by recent scientific studies showing the similarities of concussion injuries to progressive neurologic diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Research is explaining how the Tau protein accumulations in both diseases leads to progressive neurologic decline in later years, even without another concussion. The findings show that these damaged proteins cause derangement of the nervous system and spread over time from injured nerve cells to uninvolved nerve cells, "infecting " the healthy brain cells with these tangled proteins. This causes late progressive worsening of the brain function leading to depression, poor impulse control and other negative behavioral problems, and memory problems that can cause life to be unbearable.
God knows why Junior took his own life. We could all benefit from his gift, his brain, to science for the study of sports concussions. This is for all future generations.
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On vacation: Richard Borreca is on vacation. His "On Politics" column returns on May 22.
