Because the most commonly used return-to-play guidelines recommend that
an athlete who has suffered multiple concussions be held out of
sports for increasingly longer periods of time, up to and including the
rest of the season, preventing another concussion may be the difference
in the athlete being able to continue playing that season or having to
shut his season down.
While athletes sustaining a concussion are at a 3-fold increased risk for future concussions, a risk that increases with each subsequent injury, unlike musculoskelatal injuries, few strength and conditioning methods will help prevent further concussions. This does not mean, however, that no preventative methods can be taken to minimize recurrence of concussions and other head injuries.
In an article by three certified athletic trainers in the July-September 2001 special issue of the Journal of Athletic Training devoted to concussions in athletes, the authors suggest that reviewing game or practice films may "help reveal poor techniques, such as leading with the head to tackle or block or heading a soccer ball incorrectly," and that "reviewing the tape with the athlete and the coach may be useful in improving the athlete's technique or changing the coach's teaching methods."
In an 1999 article in The Physician and Sportsmedicine, Frederick Meuller, PhD, the director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and I recommended continued enforcement of the ban on initial contact with the helmet in blocking and tackling, along with coaching in the proper skills of blocking and tackling to reduce the number of fatalities and catastrophic injuries in football.
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"Paralysis - by - over - Analysis"
Football related brain injuries (concussions) are at epidemic proportions on every level of tackle football competition. I liken this health crisis to the out breaks of polio during the depression of the 1930's when hundreds of thousands of children were stricken with polio during the summer months. In 1938 our government created the "March of Dimes" and finally found a cure to beat this disease that was destroying the lives of so many children and their families.Here we are in 2010, with all of the medical knowledge and scientific technology in the world to identify brain injuries and their long term effects on athletes but yet, every four months out of every year, millions of our young people suffer needless brain injuries in tackle football. The great majority of these injuries are the direct result of obsolete tackling techniques that lead directly to helmet-first impact. In 1997, I created a "standardized" tackling safety awareness and training system that increases safety by eliminating helmet-first impact and preventing brain injuries in the first place. You can help me lower the risks of concussions by visiting my website at www.TrainEmUpAcademy.org and donate to the "TACKLE-CAMP-WILL-TRAVEL" initiative to prevent brain injuries this season. No more "Paralysis - by - over - Analysis" the time for action is now. Thank you. Sincerely, Coach Bobby Hosea