Friday, September 10, 2010

Congressional Hearings on TBIs

In this article, Lindy Washburn describes the testimony of a seventeen year old basketball player who appeared before a congressional committee to talk about her long term symptoms related to her repetitive TBIs.  She stated she had as many as seven TBIs from playing basketball over her short career and has since had five more due to other incidents after she quit basketball.  While I realize the severity and the consequences of second impact syndrome and the effect that multiple TBIs can have on a young brain, I have a big problem with congressional hearings on the subject and the potential for federal guidelines as a result.  At one point in the article, the writer makes a very dubious remark about the reliance on athletic trainers and physicians for determining the RTP standards for each athlete.  While the TBI testing software is a very useful tool for helping doctors and ATs to determine how much progress an athlete has made, it is still not the final answer.  There is much to be said about the clinical experience and expertise of physicians and ATs using the tools.  Even the developers of the software suites are quick to point this out.  This article makes it sound as if the software is the only determining factor in the RTP decision.  This seems to be a little irresponsible to overstate the value of the software.

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