John Conyers (Michigan-D), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he plans to hold hearings on the long-term effects head injuries have caused among National Football League (NFL) players. This decision came after a recent report was conducted which stated that retired players from the NFL had a higher rate of Alzheimer’s disease and other memory problems than other Americans. The hearings will investigate the long-term effects head injuries have on players, as well as how to prevent them, and how to compensate players and their families after permanent injuries have been suffered.

Sean Morey, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver, will chair the committee with union medical director Dr. Thom Mayer. The committee will also include other active players, former players, researchers and physicians who have extensive experience in neurological injuries.
 

After years of denying the long-term effects of concussions sustained by football players, the National Football League has reported on a study it commissioned that found that Alzheimer’s disease or similar memory-related diseases appeared to have been diagnosed in the League’s former players vastly more often then in the national population.
 
According to a New York Times story published on September 29, 2009, "These numbers could become the Leagues’ first public affirmation of any connection between Alzheimer’s disease and football-related concussions.”  Dr. Julian Bailes, Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at West Virginian University School of Medicine and former team physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose research found similar links four years ago, was quoted as saying,  “This is a game-changer - the whole debate, the ball’s now in the NFL’s court.  They always say, ‘We’re going to do our own studies’ and now they have.” 
 
According to the study, the researchers conducted a phone survey of 1,063 retired players who were asked a series of questions which were derived from the standard National Health Interview Survey, so that rates could be compared with those previously collected from the general population.  The researchers found that 6.1 percent of players age 50 and above reported that they had received a dementia-related diagnosis, five times higher than the cited national average of 1.2 percent.  Players ages 30 - 49 showed a rate of 1.9 percent or nineteen times that of the national average of .1 percent.

You can read the full article online here.

The Brain Injury Association of New Jersey held its 2009 annual meeting on Wednesday, September 23, 2009.  The tenure of the meeting was upbeat as a result of the outstanding leadership provided by outgoing President John Tiene over the past two years as well as the outstanding work of President and CEO Barbara Geiger-Parker and her staff. 

As is customary each year, there were award presentations.  This year, Lorraine Adawai and Nancy Sommerville were the recipients of the Founder’s Award for Volunteer Service.  They received this award for their exemplary work on expanding the Walk for Thought/Cycle for Safety event to the northern part of New Jersey. 

This year’s recipient of the James and Sarah Brady Award for Public Service was Pamela Fischer, Director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety as a result of her ongoing commitment to raise awareness about traffic safety and injury prevention.  More particularly, Ms. Fischer has dedicated her career to working to reduce teen crashes, injuries and fatalities.

The highlight of the award presentations was the awarding of the Silvio O. Conte Award for Public Awareness and Education which went to Gary Conger and three of his friends, Will Darche, Diego Ortiz and Jaraun Wright who bicycled across the United States to raise awareness of brain injury.  Gary Conger, receiving the award on behalf of his group, gave an inspirational talk that brain injury doesn’t end on the day of the injury.  Gary had sustained a severe brain injury when a senior in high school, approximately five years ago.  Through his hard work and the help of medical professionals, Gary is now in his last year at the Morris County Community College.

Also receiving awards was John K. Tiene who received the Past-Chairperson Award, Jill Schulman, Senior Director of Development for BIA-NJ for twenty outstanding years of service to the organization and Judi Weinberger, Director of Family Support and Vocational Projects who received her ten year service award.

The second highlight of the evening was the presentation of the video “Traumatic Brain Injury The Silent Epidemic” which was presented by David Grubb, incoming Vice Chairman of BIA-NJ.  This outstanding video which will be circulated to schools and organizations throughout the state of New Jersey provides an excellent learning tool for people to understand traumatic brain injury.

Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of this video should contact the BIA-NJ.

It was a wonderful evening.

Researchers from the University of California have published a new study validating prediction rules for identifying children at very low risk for clinically-important traumatic brain injuries for whom CT can routinely be obviated.  The researchers, noting that CT imaging of head injured children has the risk of radiation-induced malignancy, aim to identify children at very low risk of clinically-important TBI for whom CT scans might be unnecessary.  The research utilized patients under the age of 18 presenting with 24 hours of head trauma with Glasgow Coma Scale scores between 14-15 in 25  North American emergency departments.
 
The researchers analyzed over 42,000 children, obtaining CT scans on approximately 15,000 patients.  Of those, clinically-important TBI occurred in about one percent (376) and of those, 60 underwent neurosurgery.  The researchers concluded that for children younger than two years who had normal mental status, no scalp hematoma except frontal, no loss of consciousness or loss of consciousness for less than five seconds, non-severe injury mechanism, no palpable skull fracture and acting normally according to the parents, had a negative predictive value for clinically-important traumatic brain injury.  For children aged two years and older, the prediction rule with normal mental status, no loss of consciousness, no vomiting, non-severe injury mechanism, no signs of basilar skull fracture and no severe headache had a negative predictive value of 99.95 percent and sensitivity of 96.8 percent.  Neither rule missed neurosurgery in the validation populations.
 
The study was funded by the Emergency Medical Services for Children Programme of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau Research Programme, Health Resources and Services Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services.  The study was published in the Lancet and can be found onilne here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, The International Brain Injury Association will hold the Eighth World Congress on Brain Injury in Washington, DC, March 10-14, 2010. The preliminary program for the Congress  is now available for viewing on-line, and includes a scientific program with over 100 world renowned experts in the field of brain injury presenting on a variety of topics across the continuum of care. The IBIA has also planned other special features including workshops, panels, scientific poster and paper presentations and candlelight sessions with experts.

To access the preliminary program, or for additional information on the IBIA’s World Congress, please visit their website online here.