Nowinski, who suffered
multiple concussions on the football field and in the wrestling ring, now dedicates his work to concussion research and education, both at the Sports Legacy Institute, where he is president, and at Boston University, where he is co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease brought on by repeated trauma.
Not exact matches
installed inside or
on the outside of a player's helmet, embedded in a mouth guard, helmet chin strap, skull cap, head band, or skin patch worn behind the ear, for instance), all are essentially designed to do the same thing: alert coaches, athletic trainers, team doctors, other sideline personnel and / or parents about high - risk single and
multiple head impacts in order to improve the rate at which
concussions are identified.
In the end, it all comes back to education: In the ideal world, a parent's decision about whether to allow a child to start playing or continue playing collision sports before high school under current rules of play (which are evolving in the direction of safety, fortunately, as seen, for instance, in USA Hockey's ban
on body checking at the Pee Wee hockey level and below, and limits
on full - contact practices instituted at every level of football, from Pop Warner, to high school, college, and the NFL), will be a conscious one; a decision in which the risks of participating in a particular sport - provided it is based
on the most up - to - date information about those risks and a consideration of other risk factors that might come into play for their child, such as pre-existing learning disabilities (e.g. ADHD), chronic health conditions (e.g., a history of history of
multiple concussions or seizures, history of migraines), or a reckless and overly aggressive style of play - are balanced against the benefits to the child of participating.
In that speech (a full copy of which you can view by clicking here), I offered some suggestions
on how each of us — whether we be parent, coach, official, athletic trainer, clinician, current or former professional athlete, sports safety equipment manufacturer, whether we were there representing a local youth sports program, the national governing body of a sport, or a professional sports league, could work together as a team to protect our country's most precious human resource — our children — against catastrophic injury or death from sudden impact syndrome or the serious, life - altering consequences of
multiple concussions.
Note that my focus was
on second impact syndrome and the effect of
multiple concussions.
Many Canadian athletes compete in
multiple sports, so having our sport organizations
on the same page about
concussion is critical to ensure our athletes are managed properly.
«So one solution could be to offer
multiple education formats to ensure that parents truly hear the
concussion information rather than focusing
on just signing a form.»