From The New York Times, December 3, 2009
Ben Roethlisberger (7) led the Steelers to last year’s Super Bowl title,
but missed last week’s game with a concussion.
but missed last week’s game with a concussion.
N.F.L. Issues New Guidelines on Concussions
By Alan Schwarz
Options:
2.) Read the following selected summative passages. —J.H.
▶The The National Football League on Wednesday announced that it would impose its most stringent rules to date on managing concussions, requiring players who exhibit any significant sign of concussion to be removed from a game or practice and be barred from returning the same day.
▶The league has maintained, despite widespread criticism, that it was safe to allow players to return to the field as soon as their symptoms were gone — even in the same game in which the injury occurred. It has not been uncommon for players to return, either after passing a sideline test or by not revealing their symptoms.
▶The new rule was made in the wake of heightened scrutiny of the league’s approach to head injuries, outlined in a series of articles in The New York Times. At a Congressional hearing in October, the N.F.L. was criticized for its practices and research methods. Last week, the co-chairmen of the league’s committee on concussions resigned under fire, on the same day the league announced that players who sustain concussions could be cleared to return only by independent experts.
▶The culture of playing through brain injuries in the N.F.L. has also influenced younger players, for whom repeat concussions can be serious. Because the governing bodies at the college and high school levels do not have rules regarding concussion management, amateur players routinely return after concussions, even if they are evaluated by a doctor or athletic trainer.
▶Symptoms that require immediate removal include amnesia, poor balance and an abnormal neurological examination, whether or not those symptoms quickly subside. For symptoms like dizziness and headache, however, a player can return to the field unless they are “persistent,” the statement said.
▶Dr. Elliot Pellman, a member of the league’s committee on concussions and the primary author of several published studies that defended the league’s more liberal return-to-play protocol, declined to comment on Wednesday’s rule change.
▶ In September, The New York Times obtained the results of a league-sponsored telephone survey that indicated that N.F.L. retirees were reporting diagnoses of dementia and other memory-related diseases at several times the rate in the national population. The finding corroborated several other studies that the league had disparaged, prompting the House Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing on football brain injuries on Oct. 28 in which [N.F.L. Commissioner Roger] Goodell and the players union were criticized on the issue.
▶Dr. [Joseph] Maroon [the team neurosurgeon for the Steelers and a member of the N.F.L.’s committee on concussions] called the rule,“another progressive step for the league in terms of player safety.” Asked why the league did not adopt the rule three years ago, when outside experts were calling for it, he said: “You can ask a lot of good questions. The important thing is it’s being done now.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/sports/football/03concussion.html
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