Concussions Are Now Priority One on School Football Fields

Concussions have been so roundly ignored on the football field that a law is now in effect to force their treatment. Joshua Rotenberg M.D. of Texas Medical and Sleep Specialists says there are nearly four million concussions a year in the country. He says so often concussions are overlooked, that there needed to be a law.

"Every school district that has interscholastic sports, they have to remove a child from play, or practice, if they suspect that they have had a concussion."

He says the demands of football practice and the priority that Texas places on sports often supercedes treatment on the field.

"People are so motivated to play the game, that not even an alteration in their brain function will stop them."

Rotenberg says a concussion can remain symptomless ... hours after the injury. Symptoms include headache, nausea and being forgetful. This means kids will continue to play, making things worse.

"It gets worse with exercise so after sitting on the sidelines for a few minutes, you might feel fine but then a kid gets back in the game and they end up messing up a play that they normally would have done just fine."

He says such an injury, left untreated, can lead to permanent brain damage.

http://ccsanantonio.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=119078&article=8909918

New Study Looks At Football Helmets And Concussions

New Study Looks At Football Helmets And Concussions

Check out the new rankings at www.sbes.vt.edu/nid.php

By TIM LAMMERS

FOX CT

7:21 PM EDT, July 30, 2011

If you have a child playing high school or college football, then this story is for you. A new study looks at helmets and which ones might be the safest for your child. But not everyone agrees on the results.

Concussions have always happened in football. But only recently have we started to discover just how dangerous they really are.

"Concussions are the number one, perhaps the number one interest, and therefore the number one concern," says Dr. Carl Nissen, Elite Sports Medicine.

So it was only a matter of time before football helmets came under closer scrutiny as well.

"There is, probably, some promise that the newer helmets can reduce the rate of concussions," says Dr. Nissen.

The current standard for NFL and a lot of college, and even high school, teams comes from the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSEA). So as long as you've got their seal of approval, you're good to go.

"If a helmet has been approved by NOCSAE, it is gonna meet the minimal standards, so it is gonna be a protective piece of equipment," says Dr. Nissen.

Well, a brand new study has reached some drastically different conclusions.

"The study that we're all talking about as we go into this fall's football season is the STAR criteria for helmet safety," Dr. Nissen says. "A sliding scale of one through five stars as to whether a helmet is good or bad, safe or not."

Like the five-star rated Riddell Revolution Speed. That and all the four-starr rated helmets are highly recommended.

"Their techniques are very well established," says Dr. Nissen. "Their lab does this very well."

But two helmets were not recommended for use. One of them, the Riddell VSR4, is still commonly found in the the NFL. It also has NOCSAE's approval. And NOCSAE isn't changing its stance because Virginia Tech has yet to finish real-world testing to prove that concussion rates match up with the star ratings.

http://www.courant.com/health/connecticut/ctn-new-study-looks-at-football-helmets-and-concussions-20110730,0,3685152.story

Football players - Check out Helmet Ratings

Adult Football Helmet Ratings - May 2011

A total of 10 adult football helmet models were evaluated using the STAR evaluation system for May 2011 release. All 10 are publicly available at the time of publication. Helmets with lower STAR values provide a reduction in concussion risk compared to helmets with higher STAR values. Based on this, the best overall rating of ‘5 Stars’ has the lowest STAR value. Group rankings are differentiated by statistical significance.

http://www.sbes.vt.edu/nid.php

How expensive is autism?

Here is a very sobering post by my colleague and friend, Pat Harkins MD. She walks the walk...

How expensive is autism?

Posted by Patricia Harkins in Uncategorized

The short answer is “very”.

The long answer is, well, long

Note – I use ASD to mean “autism spectrum disorder”.

Let’s start with therapy. I estimate the average ASD child needs Speech/Language therapy for about 5 years and Occupational Therapy for about 3 years. That is 16 “therapy years”. This is about $300K to the family or insurance. The cost to public schools is about $4K per year for 13 years. Cost in babysitters because they can’t go to a regular daycare is about $5K to 26K per year needed, perhaps for average of 10 years...

In our family’s case, my husband stopped being employed when our son was 3 because of his needs

....read more at

http://autismwhisperer.net/2011/07/30/how-expensive-is-autism/

'Laughing gas' sedation calms pediatric hospital patients

'Laughing gas' sedation calms pediatric hospital patients

I am at my cerebral palsy/ "Botox" clinic today in san Antonio. Its amazing to see how cal kids are with sedation. Laughing gas makes this quick and easy.

SAN ANTONIO -- Doctors at a San Antonio hospital are using a new tool to make their smallest patients more comfortable. It’s a sedation method dentists have used for years.
This is a less invasive way to sedate children for procedures. All it requires is a mask and about three minutes.

Keeping the smallest of patients calm and tranquil during procedures is no small task. Many diagnostic or therapeutic interventions require IV sedation where children are unconscious. For some patients, though, there’s another less invasive alternative.

Gas. It’s nitrous oxide, the same stuff you’d call “laughing gas” at the dentist.

At North Central Baptist Hospital in Stone Oak, the pediatric sedation unit has been using this approach of the last two months with great success.

“They’re awake the whole time,” explained Dr. Daniel Sedillo, a pediatric critical care specialist. “You can talk to them and tell them to take a deep breath or to relax and once you take the gas off within two or three minutes they’re back to their playful self as they were before.”

The gas can be kept up for about half an hour and allows doctors to do everything from injections to biopsies, from spinal tapes to MRI scans.

The children have less angst and fear and the doctors have a cooperative patient to work on.

“The physicians who were doing the procedure were very happy that they were able to do the procedure comfortably without the child moving a whole lot and not having to see tears or screaming or anything like that,” Sedillo remarked.

Using nitrous oxide as a sedative means parents don’t have to worry as much about what their children eat before the procedure. The recovery to full consciousness is faster.

http://www.kens5.com/home/Laughing-gas-sedation-calms-pediatric-hospital-patients-103462504.html

Laser Cell Ablation for Epilepsy - Read Keagan's Story

Read Keagan 's Story

Laser Cell Ablation for Epilepsy

Texas Children's Hospital is the first hospital in the world to use real-time MRI-guided thermal imaging and laser technology to destroy lesions in the brain that cause epilepsy and uncontrollable seizures.

According to hospital experts, this new surgical approach offers a safer and significantly less invasive alternative to craniotomy, currently the most commonly used cranial surgical treatment for epilepsy. For high-risk patients with deep brain lesions, this new technique can be particularly life-changing because the MRI-guided laser probe utilizes a much smaller pathway through the brain to reach a deep lesion. This reduces the risk of patient complications related to contact with surrounding brain tissue. In addition, the MRI-guided laser probe is inserted through a hole in the skull that is only 3.2 mm (about the diameter of a pen) versus the removal of a larger area of skull bone for a craniotomy. Because it is a less invasive procedure, patient recovery time is much shorter.

Learn more about the procedure.

Keagan's StoryA recent example of the effectiveness of this new surgery is nine-year-old Texas Children’s Hospital patient Keagan Dysart, of Converse, Texas, who suffered from two types of epileptic seizures when he was diagnosed with a hypothalamic hamartoma in his brain. The gelastic seizure caused him to giggle and laugh uncontrollably two or three times an hour. Keagan would also periodically experience a tonic seizure, with generalized body stiffening and loss of awareness that caused him to fall asleep for sometimes up to an hour afterward.
Keagan’s case was particularly high risk because his lesion was located in the hypothalamus, near the brain stem. In this highly sensitive region, there are a myriad of potential, serious complications from surgery including loss of sight, damage to the pituitary gland, stroke from artery damage or development of diabetes insipidus (DI), a potentially fatal condition where the kidneys are unable to conserve water because of disruption to the area of the brain that releases the body’s anti-diuretic hormone.
The location, size and complexity of Keagan’s brain lesion made him an ideal candidate for the new surgical procedure, which was successfully performed in March without any surgical complications. He is now seizure-free.
View a presentation describing the breakthrough epilepsy procedure.

http://www.texaschildrens.org/CareCenters/Neuro/Neurosurgery/laser_cell_ablation.aspx

Texas Children’s Hospital pioneers use of MRI-guided laser surgery for revolutionary new epilepsy treatment

Read about the story of one of my patients!!! JR



Texas Children’s Hospital pioneers use of MRI-guided laser surgery for revolutionary new epilepsy treatment





New procedure significantly reduces risk of patient complications and recovery time



HOUSTON – (July 18, 2011) – Texas Children’s Hospital is the first hospital in the world to use real-time MRI-guided thermal imaging and laser technology to destroy lesions in the brain that cause epilepsy and uncontrollable seizures.

News media contact
Christy Brunton832-824-2645clbrunto@texaschildrens.org
According to hospital experts, this new surgical approach offers a safer and significantly less invasive alternative to craniotomy, currently the most commonly used cranial surgical treatment for epilepsy. For high-risk patients with deep brain lesions, this new technique can be particularly life-changing because the MRI-guided laser probe utilizes a much smaller pathway through the brain to reach a deep lesion. This reduces the risk of patient complications related to contact with surrounding brain tissue. In addition, the MRI-guided laser probe is inserted through a hole in the skull that is only 3.2 mm (about the diameter of a pen) versus the removal of a larger area of skull bone for a craniotomy. Because it is a less invasive procedure, patient recovery time is much shorter.
More than three million people in the U.S. are affected by epilepsy, including about 300,000 children under the age of 14. Uncontrollable seizures can affect a child’s memory, concentration, motor skills, school performance and quality of life. Drug therapies control seizures in about 60 percent of those with epilepsy. Invasive craniotomy, nerve stimulation and special diets are treatment options for patients who do not respond to medication.