If I were going to write an amnesia questionnaire? By Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. Overall considerations in assessing amnesia: Ask open-ended questions where you can get a feel as to the communication skills of the person injured. While amnesia is the most sensitive test and most significant test of post concussion dysfunction in the brain,(…)
What is Wrong with Children Playing Football? By Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. In an excellent article in Arizona Central by Nathan Brown, the movement towards baseline concussion testing for children in Pop Warner football is addressed. See http://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/2014/08/16/pop-warner-partners-mayo-clinic-concussions/14176461/ Note to Parents. If the experts believe that your child needs baseline testing for brain function to(…)
Football Concussions Strike Again By Gordon Johnson I make my living representing brain injury survivors. I have been doing that for more than 20 years. Since I first became a brain injury lawyer, I have been concerned about what seems to be the contagious nature of concussions. I know that concussions are not a communicable(…)
Brain Injury in Football More Common in Practice By Gordon Johnson In the 9th grade, I was 5’11” tall and weighed 185 pounds. I ran a 24 second 200 meters. I played running back and safety. Back then, 9th graders were in junior high school, not middle school. Our team was terrible. I played running(…)
Wes Welker Concussion – How Many More Can He Absorb? By Gordon Johnson Broncos’ wide receiver Wes Welker suffered another concussion on Saturday night. It was his third in 10 months. I am not a doctor and certainly not Wes Welker’s advisor. Yet as Welker is only one of thousands of athletes who must make(…)
Protect Kids from Contact Sports – Soccer Heading Concussions By Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 800-992-9447 Call us if your child has been injured playing contact sports. Never in my career as a brain injury lawyer, has the issue of concussion been so much in the news as this summer. June was dominated by the(…)
Roger Goodell Admits to Football Dangerous Techniques By Gordon Johnson One of the key allegations against the NFL is the class action concussion case was that the NFL had a paternalistic duty to its players to keep them safe. The case against the NFL then went on to claim that the NFL knew that the(…)
By Gordon Johnson The offensive line coach who was at the center of last year’s NFL Misbehavior scandal, Jim Turner, has perhaps caught the essence of what has been missing in the last 10 days controversy about domestic abuse in the NFL – it is hard to expect gentile behavior from those you teach to(…)
By Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 800-992-9447 Why does a bright, idealistic young man choose to become a lawyer over some other profession? Money, not so much. At 22 money doesn’t mean much. For most of us, we did it because we believed in the American concept of justice and we wanted to do something important,(…)
The suicide rate has surged to a 30-year high, according to the New York Times. Also, the method of suicide seems to be changing. An increased number of people are using suffocation to kill themselves. This includes hanging and strangulation. The number of suffocation cases increased to one in four suicides in 2014 from one(…)
By Jennifer Ball Brain damage in high school football players has been found without diagnosed concussions. In an article titled: “Functionally-Detected Cognitive Impairment in High School Football Players without Clinically-Diagnosed Concussion,” researchers examined neurological performance and health in the presence of head collisions in high school football players. It was done through a longitudinal study(…)
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has been in the news a couple of times this week. Tuesday, BMX rider and MTV show host Dave Mirra was in the news following his suicide in February. He was experiencing chronic brain damage before he took his own life. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy can lead to memory loss, dementia, and depression.(…)
Study on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury In a study in the Journal of Neurotrauma, Paul McMahon at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and colleagues researched post-concussion syndrome (PCS) in patients with mild traumatic brain injury. They tracked the occurrence and development of PCS in a large group of survivors with mild traumatic brain injury.(…)
A study in Molecular Neurodegeneration presented an overview of the potential for recognizing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) while the person is still alive. It is incorrect to say that CTE can only be diagnosed after somebody has died. The study reviewed the literature dating back to 1928, the first time the term CTE was used.(…)
By Jennifer Ball A new study recently found that the number of youth concussions is vastly underestimated. The researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania studied this by looking at the point of entry into the healthcare system for youth with concussions. They looked at more than 8,000 concussion diagnoses in children aged 0 to(…)
As we mourn the loss of Muhammad Ali, a question comes up. It has been asked in the news, including PBS and Aljazeera. It should now be a matter of a presumptive diagnosis that his Parkinson’s was caused by the head trauma he endured during his boxing career. The book “Neuropsychiatry of Traumatic Brain Injury,”(…)
Researchers developed a what has been called a new test to measure the level of awareness in an unconscious person. They do this by measuring the amount of glucose consumed by the brain. This essentially measures the amount of activity in the brain. The study was published by Cell Press in the journal Current Biology(…)
Stroke Study A new study published in the journal Stroke has treated patients by injecting their brains with stem cells. The procedure involves drilling a small hole in the patient’s head. The side effects were minimal including temporary headaches, nausea, and vomiting. Dr. Gary Steinberg, the study’s lead author and chair of neurosurgery at Stanford,(…)
