Posted by rozeklawoffice on April 14, 2011 under Mild Brain Injury, Traumatic Brain Injury | 
NFL-Great Terry Bradshaw
In a courageous effort to shed more light on the problem of the NFL concussions, Terry Bradshaw has come forward and disclosed that he is suffering the long-term consequences of repeated concussions. Bradshaw, always a brave competitor on the field, has now shown his bravery off the field by admitting that he is experiencing many common symptoms directly attributable to repeated concussions, including memory deficits, word-finding problems and eye-hand coordination problems. It took years before Bradshaw actually realized the permanent subtle deficits from the repeated mild traumatic brain injuries he sustained.
Bradshaw, now 62 years-old, has not played in the NFL for nearly 30 years. A 14 year quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Bradshaw sat out the first 14 games of the 1983 season following off-season arm surgery. Then, on December 10, 1983, he returned to play but left the game after hearing a pop in his elbow while throwing a touchdown pass. It would be his last NFL pass, as he subsequently retired.
Bradshaw admitted that he sustained multiple concussions over his 14 year career. He explained that back then, players, coaches, trainers, and owners simply referred to these concussions as “getting your bell rung.” Bradshaw would just inhale smelling salts and get back in the game. Oftentimes, in the huddle his teammates would have to call the play for Bradshaw because he was too disorientated.
Bradshaw explained that his cognitive deficits really hadn’t been a problem until last year. In a column on FoxSports.com, Bradshaw explained:
“Toward the end of last season on the FOX pregame show, maybe the last six weeks, I really started to forget things. That’s why I quit reciting statistics because I couldn’t remember them exactly and I stayed away from mentioning some players by name because I really wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to make a mistake. I’m on national TV in front of millions and I hate making mistakes. I told the people in Ruston that I suffered six concussions and numerous head injuries. I think that’s right, but I’m not really sure.”
Bradshaw also admitted that his personal struggle with the subtle cognitive deficits from the brain injuries has led to anxiety and depression, common consequences of brain injury. He stated:
“The memory loss made me jittery at times. It was driving me crazy that I couldn’t remember something that I studied the night before. All it did was trigger my anxiety and all of sudden everything would snowball on me. I know I have depression and it’s a horrible disease. This memory loss just made my depression worse.”
On behalf of all of my former, current and future brain injured clients, I would like to thank Mr. Bradshaw for his selfless act of coming forward with this story. He clearly has nothing to gain by sharing this information. You sir are a class act.
Posted by rozeklawoffice on April 12, 2011 under Mild Brain Injury, Traumatic Brain Injury |
In the last blog entry we discussed how the insurance industry and some within the field of neuropsychology have conspired to create a fictitious defense to the existence of long-term problems associated with mild traumatic brain injury. Essentially they have created a Karl Rovian defense to mTBI. They took what was once common knowledge, ie that mTBI can result in long-term symptoms, and they refuted the entire proposition, mainly by publishing flawed studies or by relying on simple works such as those authored by Michael McCrae.
McCrae’s premise is that the entire field of neuropsychology relied upon only two studies to establish the long-held belief that about 15% of mTBI’s result in long-term symptoms. McCrae then goes on to use flawed logic to refute these two studies, jumping to the conclusion that because these two studies were not valid, therefore the 15% number is actually less than 1%.
Any mild traumatic brain injury survivor with symptoms lasting longer than 6 months can tell you their symptoms are real and can be disabling. The common symptoms include the following:
- headaches
- dizziness
- nausea
- fatigue
- noise sensitivity
- irratibility
- sadness
- nervousness
- temper problems
- concentration deficits
- memory deficits
- difficulty reading
- sleep distrubance
Despite the prevalence of these symptoms in mild traumatic brain injury survivors, the insurance industry has persuaded a large segment of the field of neuropsychology to attempt to “prove” these ongoing symptoms are due to pre-existing depression, pre-existing anxiety or other pre-existing psychological issues. One of the most revealing claims made by this segment of the field of neuropsychology is that because these injuries cannot typically be shown with current imaging techniques, this means the injury is not real and is not organic. That argument is analogous to concluding that broken bones never existed prior to the advent of the X-ray.
Nevertheless, the neuropsychologists that are routinely hired by insurance company lawyers have gone to great lengths to establish some type of normative data to support their proposition that mild traumatic brain injuries cannot result in long-term symptoms. They have failed in their endeavors because each and every study can be easily refuted when closely scrutinized.
The adoption of the insurance industry’s agenda of denying that mild traumatic brain injury survivors could have injury-related symptoms by this segment of the field of neuropsychology is sure to create a huge cost to taxpayers through public benefit programs. Instead of holding the wrongdoers and their insurance companies responsible, we the tax payers will be paying for the ongoing care and treatment as well as the long-term disability benefits for these brain injury survivors that have permanent mTBI symptoms. While the lack of personal responsibility and accountabilility has the broadest impact to society, it is minor when compared to impact of this approach on the mild traumatic brain injury survivor.
Now more than ever it is critical that mild traumatic brain injury survivors retain an experienced, qualified brain injury attorney to advocate on their behalf. All too often, I am contacted by brain injury survivors after they retain an attorney and their attorney has completely bought into the insurance industry premise that mTBI’s cannot result in long-term consequences.
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