Personal Injury Law

NFL medical heads convene to discuss brain injuries

CNN.com reported that NFL medical heads recently met to discuss brain injuries, which can seriously affect football players both short-term and long-term. Even without symptoms, neurologists warned at the meeting that blows to the head can be deceptively severe. One doctor at Johns Hopkins University stated that blows to the head ?can lead to long-term consequences or later emergence of symptoms.? The doctor added that symptom severity is not a clear indicator of how badly the brain is injured.

The NFL has been accused in the past of minimizing evidence about the dangers of football concussions and blows to the head. One brain injury study showed that an average college football player endures nearly a thousand blows to the head during a season. Physicians opine that duress on the brain ? such as over and over during a season ? can accumulate over time. Some helmet technology allows for real-time monitoring of the impacts of hits to the head, which the Chicago brain injury attorneys at Levin & Perconti should be utilized. This is a serious problem ? last year, CNN.com reported that dead athletes? brains show serious damage from concussions.

During the meeting, four major topics were discussed, including (1) asymptomatic effects of blows to the head and their consequences, (2) head injuries and their relation to cognitive dementia, decline, and depression, (3) chronic traumatic encephalopathy, repeated head injury, and (4) how long it takes for the brain to recover after a significant hit. We hope that these topics remain on the forefront of NFL officials. In the meantime, players continue to take blows to the head and may be suffering long-term brain injuries.

Click the link to learn more about the brain injury meeting.

Full post as published by Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog on June 04, 2010 (boomark / email).