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On January 26, 2011, Democratic lawmakers reintroduced legislation, Protecting Student Athletes from Concussions Act, that would set minimum safety standards for concussion management in public schools across the country. The legislation would, for the first time, ask school districts to implement a concussion safety and management plan. It would require schools to post information about concussions on school grounds and on school websites. It would also support when in doubt, sit it out policies for students suspected of sustaining a concussion during a school-sponsored athletic activity. The National Football League

Football helmet safety standards are currently set by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE), a nonprofit corporation. The testing method used today is essentially the same as was established in the 1970s. The original goal was to prevent sudden death, skull fractures and brain bleeding in football, a goal that has been achieved. But the hot topic today in football is concussions, an injury todays football helmets cannot eliminate. The NFL acknowledged that the lack of a perfect helmet contributed to its decision to use big fines and the threat of suspensions to cut down on dangerous hits.Earlier this month Inez Tenenbaum, the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said at a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing that her agency is working to impr

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common, important and well-documented mental health outcome among seriously injured civilian and military survivors of trauma such as those injured in car accidents, construction site accidents, or by electrocution. One risk factor for the later development of PTSD is physical injury from a traumatic event especially injury that is associated with severe pain. A study published in this months New England Journal of Medicine found that giving morphine to troops injured in fighting in Iraq lowered their risk of post-traumatic stress di

The sports pages the last several months have been filled with reports of Congressional hearings and testimony concerning concussions and the National Football League particularly the long-term health effects of head injuries on players. Years ago when people thought about football players injuries, the attention was focused more on injuries such as knee injuries and other effects on bone structure, such as arthritis. When I was in law school, research I undertook in connection with a project revealed statistics that showed that the life expectancy of professional football players was lower than the general population because of such injuries.

On Tuesday, the Suffolk County Legislature approved unanimously a bill that would require county-contracted youth sports agencies to develop a written policy to address incidents of a possible or actual concussion or other head inj

A Dallas Cowboys scouting assistant paralyzed and a special teams coach whose neck was broken in the May 2, 2009, collapse of the teams practice facility due to high winds filed separate lawsuits against the Pennsylvania-based company that built the structure and several other companies involved in the construction and maintenance. Cowboys scouting assistant Rich Behm was paralyzed from the waist down and 11 others were injured when the structure was toppled in high winds. Special teams coach Joe DeCamillas suffered a broken neck in the collapse. Summit Structures, the company that built the practice facility. Summit, an engineer and five other companies are named in the lawsuits. The suits contend that the structures concrete foundation was improperly constructed and that the practice facility should have been repaired or rebuilt after problems with the design were discovered in 2007. The lawsuits state that the Cowboys were informed that the "design defects i

Two stories recently in the news raise questions about what risks are assumed by baseball fans attending games. One story involves a minor-league game last year, at which pitcher Julio Castillo threw a baseball that went into the stands during an on-field melee in Ohio, striking a fan who suffered a concussion. Castillo was recently sentenced by a judge in Montgomery County, Ohio, to 30 days in jail and three years probation. The other story involves a minor-league game in 2003, at which 4-year-old Emilio Crespin was with his family at a picnic table in the left field stands before an Albuquerque Isotopes game when a batting practice home run fractured his skull. An appellate court recently held that his parents can sue the minor-league team and the city. The 22-year-old Castillo was pitching for the visiting Peoria Chiefs, a Chicago Cubs affiliate, when the 10-minute brawl broke out during a game against the Dayton Dragons. Castillo testified at a non-jury trial tha

Around midnight on November 5, 1999, Erik Ramsey was a passenger in a friends Camaro that was in an accident with another vehicle and flipped and landed on an embankment. His injuries were devastating - a collapsed lung, a lacerated spleen, a ruptured diaphragm, ripped tendons in his hand, and a femur that was broken in two places. More so, a blood clot had caused a brain-stem stroke that cut the connection between his mind and his body, a condition known to neurologists as locked-in syndrome. He can still see, smell, and hear, his body could still register the itch of a rash or the pleasure of a warm breeze. But he cannot speak or make any voluntary movements other than with his eyes. Help, though, is on the way, as reported in a fascinating article by Chris Berdik that was published in the Spring 2009 issue of