DC Child Accident & Safety Blog

A hot topic in the world of sport safety these days is concussion. It’s not the first time we’ve covered the topic. Thanks to an increasing awareness that concussions can lead to traumatic brain injury (TBI), cognitive decline and other problems, athletes are monitored more closely for signs of head injury.

But greater awareness and better medicine have a concussion traveling companion of a decidedly consumer orientation. So-called “anti-concussion” sports equipment is making its market move. As always, it’s buyer beware.

As reported in the Los Angeles Times, no piece of equipment, no matter how technologically advanced, can indicate the presence of brain damage, or guarantee protection from it.

Testifying a couple of weeks ago at a U.S. Senate hearing, Jeffrey Kutcher, chairman of the American Academy of Neurology's sports section, said, "I wish there was such a product on the market. The simple truth is that no current helmet, mouth guard, headband or other piece of equipment can significantly prevent concussions from occurring."

Parents are a target market for these products, and football is a prime activity.

• Item: a $149 chin strap made by Battle Sports Science called the Impact Indicator that features colored lights to "help" indicate whether a player has a concussion.


• Item: the Brain-Pad LoPro mouth guard, which promises "brain safety space.


• Item: Riddell's Revolution helmet, whose pitch is to reduce the number of concussions by 31%. Kutcher said research showed that the helmet decreased concussions by only 2.6%.

Good equipment is key, whether you’re a 12-year-old middle linebacker or a 47-year-old softball catcher. But the best way to prevent brain damage (or worse) after a head injury is to take the time necessary to recover. Children have relatively heavier heads than adults, and because their brains are still developing, the incidence and severity of their head injuries is higher.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of traumatic brain injuries among young athletes has increased 60% over the last 10 years. In 2001, 153,375 young athletes were admitted to emergency rooms for concussions and other sports-related head injuries. In 2009, that number had climbed to 248,418. Approximately 298 youths per 100,000 suffered a head injury in 2009. Males 10 to 19 had the highest rate of injuries.

Motorcycle and auto accidents account for about 20% of traumatic brain injuries. According to the CDC, the most common sports and games leading to TBI are:

• bicycling


• playground activities


• football


• basketball


• soccer.

It’s difficult to resist the appeals of a kid who can’t wait to get back into the soccer game. But if she was dizzy, nauseous, had vision problems or a headache, even momentarily, she’s done until a doctor examines her. And certainly anyone who has gotten knocked out should be seen by a doctor immediately.

Time was, if you “got your bell rung” on the field of athletic play, it was a badge of honor. And if you could “shake it off” and get back into the game, you were a stud, and a role model for the rest of your teammates and spectators.

How quaint. In recent years, studies have proved that a concussion — having your “bell rung” — is not something to banner on your jock resume, but a signal to slow down, recuperate and accept that concussions can be precursors to brain damage.

It is critical, especially, that parents receive and understand this message. Although equipment manufacturers, trainers, doctors and coaches are beginning to embrace the need to protect against concussion, there’s still a macho element of sports competition that believes you’re supposed to play through pain.

A story about wiser heads prevailing appeared recently in the New York Times, which profiled a new initiative by a sporting goods chain to prevent and treat concussions in student athletes. Dick’s Sporting Goods is sponsoring neurocognitive testing of more than 1 million athletes to establish a baseline of healthy brain activity.

Referred to as ImPACT (Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing), the tests profile each student’s baseline of brains functions such as verbal and visual memory and reaction time. The results are compared with the results of the same tests given in the event of a suspected concussion. If the comparison signifies deterioration, the player is benched until deemed healthy enough to resume play.

Called Protecting Athletes through Concussion Education (PACE), the program employs a diagnostic procedure also used by professional sports associations including the National Football League, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.

As The Times’ story notes, approximately 300,000 sports- or recreation-related concussions are diagnosed nationwide yearly, but, according to the American College of Sports Medicine, approximately 8 in 10 concussions go undiagnosed.

There’s information, and there’s the useful application of information. To boost the chances of concussion-awareness getting through to student jocks and their parents, Dick’s has employed the services of former Pittsburgh Steelers’ running back Jerome Bettis in a commercial to convey the importance of baseline testing.

Known during his career as “The Bus” for dragging defenders down the field, he’s featured with a football helmet and saying, “You wouldn’t get on the field without this — and you shouldn’t get on the field without a baseline concussion test either.”

As reported by The Times, Bettis had several concussions, and said that he wished he had known more about the symptoms and the potential long-term impairment. “[H]ad I known then what I know now,” Bettis said, “I would have handled it differently and I would have told the trainers, because the last thing I want is 20 years down the road to not have my brain function correctly.”

If your children participate in sports or a recreational activity with even the slightest potential for head injury, ask the school, athletic association or your physician how to get a baseline concussion test. And stay involved during the season — ensure that equipment is adequate, and that the coaches, trainers and other adult supervisors are as concerned about head injury as you are.

A U.S. senator is leading the charge to have the Federal Trade Commission investigate "misleading safety claims and deceptive practices" in the selling of new and used reconditioned football helmets.

In a letter to the FTC, Tom Udall, the Democratic senator from New Mexico, charges that helmet companies "appear to be using misleading advertising claims" and that "some helmet reconditioning companies may be falsely selling used helmets as meeting an industry safety standard."

In the letter, Udall singles out “misleading" marketing claims by Riddell, the helmet maker that supplies the official helmet to the National Football League, as saying on its web site that research shows "a 31 percent reduction in the risk of concussion in players wearing a Riddell Revolution football helmet when compared to traditional helmets, yet there is actually very little scientific evidence to support the claim."

Riddell’s CEO called Udall’s allegations “unfounded and unfair” and said the company welcomes “any scrutiny and review.”

In November, Udall asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission to investigate whether safety standards for football helmets are adequate to protect players from concussions. Udall serves on the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the Consumer Protection Safety Commission.

Source: Kentucky Post

Fred Mueller is not your casual weekend sports fan. The retired 74-year-old former professor from the University of North Carolina continues to run – almost single-handedly – the National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research (NCCIR) at UNC, tracking, logging and analyzing catastrophic injuries in football and other sports.

Over a 30-year span, Mueller has analyzed more than 1,000 fatal, paralytic or otherwise severe injuries to young athletes, looking for and identifying patterns that result in rule or other changes that increase athlete safety.

The data compiled by the NCCIR has its genesis in the “football death log” begun in 1931 by the American Football Coaches Association. In the 1960s, UNC began to oversee the log. After Mueller became director of the NCCIR in 1980, he expanded it to include catastrophic injuries in all sports, among boys and girls.

Almost immediately, Mueller noted a previously hidden cluster of injuries among polevaulters and swimmers. As a result, polevaulting pits were expanded and surrounded with softer padding, while minimum depths were established for diving into swimming pools.

And after he noted the high number of injuries among cheerleaders, specifically those who are thrown up to 25 feet high and not caught, cheerleading safety guidelines and universal standards were established.

So far this year, Mueller has logged 24 catastrophic football injuries; typically, there are 36 such injuries every year. He’s also just finished a book on football injuries co-written with Robert Cantu, MD, the NCCIR's medical director. Football Fatalities and Catastrophic Injuries, 1931-2008 details football’s decade-by-decade tragedies and rule changes — like the 1976 outlawing of spearing and more recent adjustments to kickoff wedges. A final chapter discusses injury prevention strategies and other ways to make football safer.

Source: The New York Times

To visit the National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research home page, click here.

Soccer moms and dads need to know that the portable goals used on many of their kids' soccer fields pose a serious safety hazard when they're not secured to the ground.

As many as half a million portable goals weighing up to 400 pounds are on American soccer fields, and if they aren’t secured properly, they can tip over and cause severe injury or even death.

According to statistics from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, at least 34 children have died since 1979 from injuries caused by soccer goals that tipped over. And each year, more than 200 players are injured.

Soccer goals are heaviest in the front and therefore can tip forward without warning when children climb or hang from the front bar (doing pull-ups or chin-ups, for example). Even a gust of wind can cause an unsecured goal to tip over.

If the goals are weighted down with stand bags or stakes, they won’t tip. Although referees are supposed to check each goal before every game to ensure they are being held down, parents should double check to ensure the goals are firmly in place.

Child safety experts also advise parents to talk with their soccer-playing children about the dangers of portable soccer goals. And, they say, the goals should be taken down when they aren’t in use to avoid accidents after the game is over.

Source: WRAL-TV Raleigh

Soccer parents can find a complete list of safety recommendations here.

Hundreds of thousands of youngsters who participate in tackle football are wearing helmets that are too old to protect them from dangerous brain concussions. And even new helmets provide little protection from concussion.

These are just two of several eyebrow-raising findings in a report from the New York Times. Writer Alan Schwarz says:

Helmets both new and used are not — and have never been — formally tested against the forces believed to cause concussions. The industry, which receives no governmental or other independent oversight, requires helmets for players of all ages to withstand only the extremely high-level force that would otherwise fracture skulls.

The standard has not changed meaningfully since it was written in 1973, despite rising concussion rates in youth football and the growing awareness of how the injury can cause significant short- and long-term problems with memory, depression and other cognitive functions, especially in children.

Even worse, the industry's few safety standards are flouted by companies that recycle old helmets, returning them in dangerous condition, according to the Times:

Some of the businesses that recondition helmets ignored testing rules, performed the tests incorrectly or returned helmets that were still in poor condition. More than 100,000 children are wearing helmets too old to provide adequate protection — and perhaps half a million more are wearing potentially unsafe helmets that require critical examination, according to interviews with experts and industry data.

Read more here.

A leading sports injury expert says that cheerleading has become one of the riskiest sports for women. Lifelong pain and disability, paralysis and even death are becoming more common consequences of participation in cheerleading.

The expert, Frederick Mueller, points out that most people still think of cheerleaders as mere pompom-waving eye candy and do not realize that cheerleading can involve dangerous gymnastic exercises. Because of this, schools often will not label cheerleading as a sport and choose to class it with non-athletic activities like working on the newspaper or acting in a play. This labeling contributes to the dangers of cheerleading:

The main problem, critics say, is that cheerleading in most states is not considered a sport; it's an "activity" such as chess club and debating. As a result, it is not required to follow uniform safety regulations, such as mandating off-seasons, routine physicals and soft surfaces that would minimize injuries. Coaches are not required to undergo standardized training.

There are obvious ways to minimize this risk. The coaches and administrators of cheerleading organizations quoted in the article point out that approaching cheerleading with the same care schools use in recruiting and training coaches for sports like basketball and football would make the sport much safe. For instance:

Several organizations also offer training programs for coaches, including how to minimize risks, teach stunts properly and respond to medical emergencies.

Among those organizations are the American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators and the National Federation of State High School Associations.

If your child is or wants to get involved in cheerleading, it is a good idea to talk to the coach first and see what kind of training he or she has had. It would also be wise to ask about safety measures the coach plans to implement to protect the cheerleaders.

Candi Martinez is filing a wrongful death suit against Las Cruces Public Schools because her daughter Destinie, who had heart disease, died after she was sent to gym class despite a note excusing her for medical reasons and then was kept from the hospital because the school called the wrong parents to obtain consent.

Destinie was kept in class even after she began vomiting.

This case (whatever its merits) reminds us of how the institutional nature of schools can lead to a child's individual medical problems going ignored by teachers and administrators, who may be too busy keeping general order to pay attention to an individual child.