In the second study, Allison Schwarz, also an athletic trainer at the University of Wisconsin, sought to assess whether high school athletes who'd suffered a concussion were
at any higher risk for depression over the longer term.
When I finally had a chance to speak, we were already running
over the 2 1/2 hours allotted
for the roundtable, so I was only able to briefly touch on two of my many message points: one, that the game can be and is being made safer, and two, that, based on my experience following a
high school football team in Oklahoma this past season - which will be the subject of a MomsTEAM documentary to be released in early 2013 called The Smartest Team - I saw the use of hit sensors in football helmets as offering an exciting technological «end around» the problem of chronic under - reporting of concussions that continues to plague the sport and remains a major impediment, in my view, to keeping kids safe (the reasons: if an athlete is allowed to keep playing with a concussion, studies show that their recovery is likely to take longer, and they are
at increased
risk of long - term problems (e.g. early dementia,
depression, more rapid aging of the brain, and in rare cases, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and in extremely rare instances, catastrophic injury or death.)