[Stitcher]

Concussion picture becoming clearer

Sean Fitz-Gerald, National Post
Published: Monday, January 19, 2009
http://www.canada.com/sports/story.html?id=1194604

LONDON, Ont. -- Eric Lindros had spent the better part of nine hours listening to a panel of experts discuss the danger of concussions. Their talks had included some startling data, a series of warnings and slides of damaged brain tissue.

The pictures were part of an unsettling look into what could become his future. Lindros, a retired National Hockey League star, once suffered four concussions in a single season, at a time when diagnosis and treatment were murky and contentious issues.

"I'll be honest with you, I was sitting there at the start of it, and they start bringing out the facts about the long-term effects on the football players," Lindros said after the last of the seminars. "It was like, ‘Yeah, hello.' "

The 35-year-old was a panelist at the London Hockey Concussion Summit, an assembly of leading medical experts from the United States and Canada. And what they argued, in a hotel ballroom filled with 300 attendees on Saturday, is that while the diagnosis and treatment of a concussion remains an inexact science, athletes cannot afford to ignore its symptoms.

Scientists are beginning to build stronger links between the injury and some of its long-term impacts, such as depression, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other quality of life issues.

"It is alarming, and I hope that it is causing people to pause and reflect," said Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon based in Concord, Mass. "We're not trying to say, ‘Don't play these sports at all.' But we are trying to make an awareness that there are problems - problems that need to be studied."

One of the common themes throughout the day was that, while there is no universal method for diagnosing a concussion, athletes showing symptoms should be removed from the field of play immediately. And they should not return until they are asymptomatic, or risk suffering another concussion and, potentially, permanent brain damage.

Retired National Football League safety Andre Waters once told a reporter he had lost count of how many concussions he had suffered once he got past 15, saying he usually returned to play without a word. He shot himself three years ago, at 44, having spiralled into a state of depression that a neuropathologist linked to his repeated head trauma.

Dr. Bennet Omalu told The New York Times that Waters showed signs of Alzheimer's, and that his brain tissue looked as though it belonged to a man twice his age. He told the paper that if Waters had lived another decade, he "would have been fully incapacitated."

Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz, research director for the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes, based at the University of North Carolina, said his work revealed the average retired NFL player suffered 2.1 concussions as a professional.

More than 15% of the nearly 3,000 retirees surveyed claimed their concussions had a permanent impact on their thinking and memory as they aged.

"You could take Troy Aikman and Steve Young, two guys who had a lot of concussions during their playing days, and they're very successful right now," Guskiewicz said. "Troy is an announcer, on one of the leading teams, and Steve Young is the same way. The question is - and I'm praying - that they are as cognitively intact at 50 as they are at 40, and at 60 as they are at 50. And that's the unknown right now."

That unknown concerns Jeff Beukeboom. He suffered what he considers five or six "major" concussions in his 13-year NHL career. Those were the ones when he lost consciousness, but he has no idea how many more he might have suffered without blacking out.

"I've read a bunch of articles on the wrestlers and the football players, and I've read some articles on World War Two soldiers who had traumatic head injuries," he said. "It concerns me, but I feel good about the fact I've had my two years of recovery and I'm feeling better."

The 43-year-old, now working as an assistant coach with the Ontario Hockey League's Barrie Colts, suffered post-concussion syndrome for two years after he retired. And while he said he feels healthy, he conceded there are times when he feels more tired and worn down than he probably should.

"What's the point of worrying about what's 15 or 20 years down the road for me? It is in the back of my mind, and I'm trying to get educated, just in case," Beukeboom said. "But the bottom line is, who knows what's going to come with medicine between now and then?"

For now, there is no magic pill for concussion sufferers. And there are also not many answers, which is one of the reasons Lindros offered his attendance in order to help raise awareness of an issue he might otherwise be sick of discussing.

"You know what? You have to," Lindros said. "If everyone sits around and doesn't talk about it, word doesn't get out about the importance, the severity and the frequency. And the scary part today was, there is no answer."

[Steve777]

The missing element of MRI, for concussion cases, is of the jaw joint where the jawbone meets the skullbase. Players like Mcgahee will display a disloged dime sized cartilage disk in the TMJ. As a natural cushion it works great, when slipped, it creates a "Glass Jaw". It's been found to be the only anatomical marker common in all concussion prone athletes. mahercor laboratories has much more info.