I hope people are not seeing these reports of hockey and football players returning to training and consider it encouraging of a full recovery.

These are pros whose lives and livelihoods have been built around their athletic endeavors. They have a different reason for returning to play. Most would not want to go on at all without their sport.

Their threshold of recovery is based on physical ability. They rarely consider the life long consequences of further injury. Since the medical 'experts', neuro-psychs (like Mickey Collins and Goia) and sports trainers are still afraid to speak strongly about the long term consequences of concussion, they are willing to risk their futures to play again.

There is a physiological condition that causes some to go overboard in pursuit of the dopamine effect they get from their intense and risky activity. This is similar to why our armed forces like to deploy 18 to 22 year olds to the front lines. They have this physiological ability to overcome fear to pursue this dopanimne high that older and/or wiser people do not have. It is the same with extreme sports participants.

I am not saying that things will not get better. But, life will never be the same. We will always be susceptible to further concussions that will cause even more damage and long term or permanent symptoms.

Adjusting the way we pursue life is the best way to get better and stay better. There is still plenty of opportunities to live a full life. It just make take a bit of reinventing ourselves.

I can't wait for the day that purposeful hits to the head in a sport result in assault charges. We have enough people suffering concussions without letting competitors try to give each other concussions.

Society loses when someone sustains a life changing concussion. There is a huge financial cost and emotional cost not to mention the loss of a fully productive member of society. Is cancer still plaguing the world because the person who had the intellect to find a cure was concussed and could not make the grade for med school? We'll never know.