Linda Carroll - The Concussion Crisis: Anatomy of a Silent Epidemic

Acclaim for The Concussion Crisis

Thoughtfully passionate and comprehensive.... Quite a devastating testament. It lays it all out and forces us to ponder how a civilized people can blithely accept an entertainment that does such damage to young mens minds.... One lays The Concussion Crisis down wondering where future American gridiron gladiators will come from; surely not from families who read this book.

Frank Deford, The Washington Post

In The Concussion Crisis , health writer Carroll and sportswriter Rosner team up to offer a jolt on the headintellectual onlyto those whove tended to dismiss blows to the noggin as innocuous.... The book is a clarion call to take full measure of the broken brains and bodies among us.

The Globe and Mail of Canada

Important.... A book everyone involved with football or concerned about the sport must read.

Gregg Easterbrook, ESPN.com

The Concussion Crisis should be required reading for parents, teachers, amateur and professional athletes, coaches, trainers, and anyone interested in the health of children and young people.... Linda Carroll and David Rosner have crafted a riveting look at a health crisis that is finally coming to light after decades of denial. They make a convincing case.... People who read this fascinating and eye-opening book will never think about concussions and head injuries in the same old way.

Connie Goldsmith, R.N., New York Journal of Books

A very hot topic.... This noteworthy book issues a challenge to the macho play-through-the-pain sports culture and urges a rethinking of safety versus spectacle.

Publishers Weekly

A cautionary wake-up call about addressing a seemingly innocuous hit to the head with critical care.... A comprehensive, anecdote-laden analysis of concussive head traumas.

Kirkus Reviews

A powerful call for action on the part of parents, coaches, and older athletes.... A good primer for parents whose kids play contact sports such as football.

Booklist

This valuable book brings an important public health issue to light. Highly recommended.

Library Journal

This book makes a convincing case for a radical shift away from [macho] attitudes, towards an understanding of concussion as a mild traumatic brain injury with potential for long-term, permanent changes in brain functioning and behaviour.... Anyone involved in contact sports, and many who arent, will find The Concussion Crisis accessible and educational. It could help prevent a lot of needless and preventable suffering.

Ursula Fuchs, R.N., Winnipeg Free Press

The Concussion Crisis puts a human face on traumatic brain injury through real-life stories of athletes and soldiers. The authors define the problem, explain the science, and accentuate the need for prevention. This informative book sounds a much-needed alarm for medical intervention, continued research, and a reassessment of how we play sports.

Michael J. Stuart, M.D., co-director of the Mayo Clinics Sports Medicine Center and chief medical officer of USA Hockey

There is no injury I worry about as a coach more than concussions, and this book shows why. Its a must-read for athletes and their parents.

Anson Dorrance, coach of the USAs first World Cup womens soccer champions and of UNCs twenty-time NCAA champions

Carroll and Rosner tell some utterly heartbreaking stories, but their book, ultimately, offers hope by giving readers the information and resources they need to confront a public health crisis. They show us that a concussion does not have to be a life-altering event, but it can be if it is not properly recognized, respected, and treated.

Michael Sokolove, author of Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Womens Sports

Linda Carroll and David Rosner convincingly maintain that lots of people regard concussions as a nuisance rather than as potentially life-altering brain injuries. If their book educates some of those peopleparticularly those of them coaching and/or parenting young athletesthen they will have performed a worthwhile service.

Bill Littlefield, host of NPRs Only a Game

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For all those whose lives have been changed by the invisible injury

For more than a decade, a small cadre of scientists had been raising the alarm. Their message was simple and scary: concussions were on the rise and research was showing that these jolts to the brain were a lot more dangerous than any of us thought. While the impact of one jolt to the head tended to be transient, researchers were learning that the brain damage from concussions could not only add up, but also become permanent. And that was especially true if these mild traumatic brain injuries occurred in rapid succession.

Since most of us had been brought up with the assumption that a head injury that didnt result in a trip to the hospital could be ignored, no one was keeping count of our ownor our childrensconcussions. Moreover, since wed been raised in a culture that celebrated hard knocks as a rite of passage, we didnt think twice when our kids got banged around on the ballfield.

But as it turned out, some of the most frightening research was in childrenespecially those playing contact sports. Kids brains, scientists learned, were exquisitely sensitive to repeated jolting. Concussions, if they werent managed properly, could derail a kids life. Thinking could be slowed, attention dulled, judgment impaired, memory muddled. Those changes could make school impossible and send a kid on a downward spiral.

Unfortunately, studies had also shown that many parents were unaware of the dangers facing their children. A 2010 survey found that just 8 percent of parents felt they had a good background on the dangers of repeat concussions. More than a third said they knew virtually nothing about concussion risks, while fully half said they didnt even know whether their childrens school had a policy detailing when a student-athlete could return to play after a concussion.

Other studies showed that this was a particularly bad time for parents to be ignorant about the dangers of concussions. A silent epidemic of these unseen brain injuries among kids had been exploding right under our noses. And nowhere was that more true than on the nations playing fields. In just ten years, visits to the emergency room for concussions among eight- to thirteen-year-olds had doubled, while visits among fourteen- to nineteen-year-olds had more than tripled, a 2010 study showed. And that was just the tip of the iceberg, experts warned, since it didnt include all the kids who were seen by their family doctors or had never even told anyone about their symptoms. It was clear that the public had to be warned and educated about the danger of injuries that had long been dismissed as dings and bumps on the head.

The Concussion Crisis lays out the history of how we came to underestimate the damage resulting from jolts to the head and how scientists, over the last couple of decades, began to recognize that there was an emerging silent epidemic of brain injuries, especially in sports. While nobody knows exactly how many concussions occur, estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention range anywhere from 1.6 million to 3.8 million sports-related brain injuries in the United States annually. Those CDC estimates dont include concussions from accidents such as playground falls and bicycle collisions. Whatever the actual number of concussions is, one thing researchers do know is that nearly a quarter of a million new patients turn up each year with long-term deficits resulting from these so-called mild traumatic brain injures.