Youths need better awareness of dangers of concussions

INQUIRING MINDS: Bill White, president and founder of Brain In Play International, says that young people often minimize the symptoms of concussions and often don’t report them, while parents and coaches often haven’t had enough information. / COURTESY BRAIN IN PLAY
INQUIRING MINDS: Bill White, president and founder of Brain In Play International, says that young people often minimize the symptoms of concussions and often don’t report them, while parents and coaches often haven’t had enough information. / COURTESY BRAIN IN PLAY

Bill White is the chief author of the new book, “Winning the War Against Concussions in Youth Sports,” a topic that has risen in public awareness due to expanding research on the effects of sports-related head injuries. White grew up playing many sports and is the father of five children who have been high school athletes, one of whom suffered a concussion and had some long-term effects that only became clear several years later.
White has found that a major challenge in treating concussions is many young people minimize effects such as headaches or fogginess because of loyalty to their teams and because they don’t want to be sidelined.
Attention to sports-related head injuries has also increased since some high-profile athletes have been involved in acts of violence, including suicide, raising the question of whether repeated head trauma may be a cause.

PBN: Why have sports-related head injuries gained visibility, even though these types of injuries have been common in school and professional sports?
WHITE: In the past few years there has been an increasing amount of research that’s driven awareness that these concussions and sub-concussive blows that accumulate cause more serious brain damage for some youths than previously realized.

PBN: What kind of medical or technological developments have increased the growing concern about concussions?
WHITE: There’s a particular type of MRI scan … that allows us to see the brain damage much more clearly. The advancement of that technology has been in the last few years.

PBN: When did your work cause you to become more concerned about head injuries suffered by student athletes? WHITE: As the chief operating officer and chief nursing officer at Bradley Hospital, which is a behavioral and brain-health hospital, we would frequently see adolescents who had suffered head injuries.

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PBN: You’ve said that one of your five children suffered some long-term effects from a concussion? Can you offer some details about how your child sustained those injuries, the effects and the treatment?
WHITE: When my son was a freshman in high school playing football, he got a bad concussion. He had the best treatment available at the time, but we found he minimized his symptoms – he hid them from us. That’s what kids do, they don’t want you to know. Of course, my wife and I were watching and paying close attention, but he’d say everything was OK. When he was medically cleared to play again, he didn’t return to football. He said he wanted to prepare for basketball. He knew something wasn’t right from his injury. He started to have some academic performance issues, which he’d never had before. We didn’t put that together with the concussion. We just figured high school was tough. He wasn’t telling us that he had headaches. We didn’t really know all the details until seven or eight years later. The basic treatment was emergency care followed by rest until the symptoms went away. Now we’re realizing that even when kids don’t have symptoms, the brain still needs to heal.

PBN: Based on your personal and professional experience, what’s the major obstacle in dealing with these concussive injuries?
WHITE: The main obstacle is that the kids often minimize their symptoms and often don’t report them and players, parents and coaches haven’t had enough information. Concussions in youths are drastically underreported. One recent study of soccer-playing girls found that more than 50 percent played with symptoms of a concussion, mainly headaches or fogginess. Surveys consistently find that kids will not report they have symptoms because they don’t want to come out of games because of loyalty to their coaches and team. That could result in more-serious injury and the often fatal second-impact syndrome, which is two concussions back-to-back.

PBN: The recent spotlight on some athletes involved in violence has raised questions about whether head injuries might be associated with violence or anger-management issues. Do you have insight on whether those things are related?
WHITE: One of the core symptoms of concussions in youths and adults is that there may be more problems with emotional control.

PBN: What is the goal of Brain In Play and what do you do?
WHITE: Brain In Play is comprehensive, specialized care for behavioral and brain health. We primarily focus on concussions and mild, cognitive impairment, including pre- and early dementia. The first step in a major concussion is to go to the emergency room. After that, we do a complete work-up using our innovative assessments related to the concussive injury and we customize a treatment plan. All our providers are licensed to evaluate and prescribe medications and perform psychotherapy. We provide a specific series of brain-wellness, evidence-based best practices intensified by our unique process, which includes specific regimens for exercise, sleep, nutrition, hydration, meditation and stress management. We use medications only as necessary. •

INTERVIEW
Bill White
POSITION: President and founder of Brain In Play International
BACKGROUND: White is the former chief operating officer and chief patient-care officer at Bradley Hospital, a psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents in East Providence affiliated with the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. White coached several youth sports for more than 20 years. He and his wife and business partner, Katharine White, founded Brain In Play, based in Warwick, about two years ago. White is also president and founder of the Brain In Play Foundation.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s in nursing, Rhode Island College, 1976; master’s in nursing, University of Rhode Island, 1983
FIRST JOB: Working part time as an evening unit secretary in intensive care at Roger Williams Hospital when a college freshman
RESIDENCE: Cranston
AGE: 61

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