Sports Safety IQ

Lori Crispo appears on "One on One" with Steve Adubato

Please watch my interview with Steve Adubato on youth sports safety, as part of "One on One's" Youth Sports Education series.

This video is provided courtesy of Caucus Educational Corp. www.CaucusNJ.org.

 

Click here to watch One on One interview.

 

Concussion Update, Part IV: Legislation to Protect your Melon

Lawmakers in Washington state are putting through a bill to help minimize the potential for traumatic brain injuries in sports. Washington has approved the country's strictest law governing the return to play of youth athletes who are suspected of having a concussion. The law, which is informally known as Zackery Lystedt's Law, state that any athlete under 18 who shows signs of concussion will be barred from returning to play until he or she has been evaluated by a physician and cleared to resume sports activities. The purpose of this law is to prevent what is known as second impact syndrome. The law also has an educational component, requiring athletes and parents to sign a concussion and head-injury information form.

The law is named for Zackery Lystedt, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2006, during a middle school football game. Zackery, then 13, took a hard hit in the end zone that put him out of the game for 15 minutes. He then went back in the game, where he collapsed on the field a few minutes later. His last words to his father before losing consciousness were, "Dad, I can't see."  Zackery was then taken to the hospital where doctors operated on the hemorrhage in his brain. Three years later, he is still in a wheel chair, although he has mostly regained his sight and speech. It took Zackery 9 months after the injury before he could speak again.

Concussion Update, Part III: Head Injuries ~ Looking for Signs and Acting Quickly

Adding to the wealth of information in the media recently regarding head injuries, the NY Times joined in with an article on the importance of acting quickly to get head injuries checked out (view "Head Injuries" article).

While serious head injuries are rare in sports (when compared to total numbers of participants each year), when they do happen, every minute counts. In some circles, brain trauma specialists refer to the time between the injury and getting treatment as "brain minutes" with each minute potentially being the difference between life and death.

The NY Times article touches on a number of critical points:

• Helmets do not always prevent concussion, but they are almost 100% effective in preventing skull fractures.
• The evidence in Natasha Richardson's case suggests she fractured her skull during the fall,  causing an artery tear and the subsequent brain bleed that led to her death.
• Concussions -- which are the result of a quick acceleration and deceleration (or shaking) of the brain -- are not always caused by head-to-head or head-to-object contact. In some cases, a body-to-body tackle or hard check can cause a concussion as well.
• Anyone who suffers a head injury or exhibits symptoms of concussion should ALWAYS be checked out by a doctor.

Coming up next: In Concussion Update IV, see what lawmakers in the state of Washington are doing to protect kids from Second Impact Syndrome.

Concussion Update, Part II: More Brain Injury Prevention & Awareness for Parents & Coaches

   During National Brain Injury Awareness month, what do you as a parent or coach need to know about brain injuries that can occur during sports activities? First on the list is that concussions are on the rise in youth sports. Players are more aggressive, hitting harder and playing tougher, sometimes to their own detriment. And I'm not just talking about boys. Concussions among female athletes are soaring, with head injury rates among female soccer players, for example, rising to the level of those in the NFL. The competitive nature of sports, coupled with the competitive nature of parents these days (pushing kids to excel at all costs) and the added lure of college scholarships and lucrative pro contracts, all point to a driving sports culture that is not going to change any time soon. In this culture, injuries to kids are going to continue to escalate.

How, in this race to the highest levels of sports, can we prevent concussions and head injuries?

Concussion Update, Part I: Natasha Richardson's Death and Brain Injury Awareness Month

Part One in the "Concussion Update" series    

It is a terrible coincidence that actress Natasha Richardson's death on the ski slopes from a traumatic brain injury occurred during Brain Injury Awareness month. Each March, the Brain Injury Association of America sponsors events and publicity to raise awareness of brain injuries and their effects. This year, the association's focus -- and part of their year-long campaign -- is Sports & Concussions. What a tragic way of underscoring the seriousness of prevention and awareness of head injuries for athletes than to have the whole country focused on Natasha Richardson's story.

Steroids and Girls, Spring Break and Athletes

Parents and coaches, take heed. The Sports Safety IQ tip for this week is that news on steroid use and abuse is breaking daily and you need to keep up. I have run into no fewer than nine different steroid stories recently that have left my head spinning.

Story #1: I picked up these eye-openers at the US Lacrosse National Convention, where I sat in on the Sports Science & Safety committee meeting where I learned that the fastest growing group of steroid users is teenage girls. The majority of these girls are not using PED's for athletic purposes, but simply as a diet aid to achieve a lean, muscled physique. Read on at Forbes.com, "Many Teen Girls Use Steroids."

MRSA Infections Threaten Youth Athletes on their own Turf

Sports Safety IQ tip of the day to parents and coaches: If your kids are playing on synthetic turf, you need to be extra vigilant about monitoring, cleaning and covering abrasions, turf-burns and other cuts they may get from being raked across the surface while playing. There is an ongoing debate about whether MRSA bacteria can survive on synthetic turf and be passed from player to player through open wounds common to athletes.

A new article "Texas Football Succumbs to Virulent Staph Infection from Turf" on Bloomberg.com makes a strong case for the link between MRSA found in football players in Texas and the synthetic turf fields on which they play. According to studies done with the help of the University of Texas, football players are more likely to be infected with MRSA than players in any other sport. This study makes a correlation between the high percentage of turf fields in Texas and the high rate of MRSA among its football players -- more than 16 times greater than the national average.

MRSA Superbugs, Part II: Prevention at School and at the Gym

I wrote about protecting yourself from MRSA superbugs in my last post. But what can schools and gyms do to protect you? The administration at my alma mater, Montclair Kimberley Academy (MKA), just put out very strong guidelines on MRSA and the handling of potential cases. Their quick action is not only commendable, but should be a model for all schools.

Following the Center for Disease Control's guidelines, MKA will consider any potential skin infection to be a potential MRSA infection. No student or adult will be allowed to return to school until the infection has been cultured for MRSA and a doctor has cleared them to return. As long as the infection can be completely covered by a bandage to prevent contact with others, they can come back to school. All cases of confirmed MRSA will be reported to the town's Health Department in order to be traced by the State, and a letter will be sent to all parents to notify them of an outbreak.

Scary News about MRSA Superbugs, Part I: Protect Yourself

Ten Tips for Protecting Yourself from MRSA

MRSA, the Superbug strain of staph infection, previously found in hospitals and healthcare facilities, has now made the leap to other public places like schools, gyms, locker rooms and indoor pools. MRSA has been sweeping the news in recent weeks with fatal cases in New York, Virginia and elsewhere -- causing logjams at the pediatrician's office as nervous parents drag their kids in to have each bump, pimple and reddened scratch looked at.

Before worrying if you've got MRSA, let's worry about how to protect yourself and family from coming in contact with MRSA in the first place. MRSA, like many contagious diseases lying in wait in locker rooms and schools, is passed on by skin to skin contact or from contact with an object that has been touched by another's infection -- like sharing workout equipment or machines, towels or uniforms. Taking normal precautions is the key to staying healthy. Follow these ten tips to protect yourself:

The Shame of Steroids in Sports

The rampant use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs among pro and amateur athletes is as disgusting as it is tragic. The creation of supermen and superwomen  -- and our passive acceptance of them as athletes to worship -- is damaging sports, ruining lives and eroding the values of the next generation of athletes.

How many more kids will be disappointed by athletes like Marion Jones, Floyd Landis and others who will fall off their pedestal before sports organizations take a hard line with drug users? How many situations like the murder-suicide of pro-wrestler Chris Benoit will occur before we vote with our viewership and our dollars that this is not acceptable?

Girl Athletes, Sports Injuries and Quality Coaches

As a follow up to last week's post, I was just reading an article in the Asheville Citizen Times, "Programs aim to help female athletes lower risk of sports injuries," and it reminded me of the additional risk girls and female athletes face with regard to knee injuries.  ACL injuries -- damage to the anterior cruciate ligament that stabilizes the knee -- are 4 to 6 times more common in female athletes than males, according to this article.

The main reason for ACL injuries in females is structural: wider hips means that knees turn in more, which causes problems when pivoting or jumping in sports like soccer, lacrosse or basketball. Hormones are also thought to play a role in the predominance of ACL injuries to girls, as well as lack of development of the supporting muscles, especially hamstrings.

Girls' Sports are Tough ...

                                               ... And girl athletes are tougher. But do they need to be? My head was still reeling from the article in the NY Times that talked about girls being more vulnerable to concussions than boys (NY Times, Oct 2nd, 2007), when I overheard the following story at my daughter's soccer game.

Turns out one of the team parents took their older daughter to the ER at Morristown Memorial Hospital after she blew out her knee during a soccer game. When they arrived at the hospital, the waiting room was filled with 25 kids in soccer uniforms, about 22 of whom were girls, according to the mom. When it was their turn to see the doctor, the mom told the doctor she couldn't believe how crowded the waiting room was with all the soccer injuries. The doctor's response? "This is just a typical Saturday afternoon -- overflowing with girls with concussions, knee and ankle injuries."

Parents, if you think your daughters need to be playing "this tough," think again. Young athletes, whether boys or girls, do not need to get hurt in youth sports. This is one of those gaps in common sense: parents believe that getting injured is all part of the sports experience, when in reality, 90% of injuries to kids playing sports are preventable.