Raising Awareness of Brain Injury
March is brain injury awareness month. In Salt Lake County alone there are nearly 10,000 people each year receive treatment for a brain injury.
Children with ages ranging from zero to four and teens ranging from 15-19 are the ones who will most likely sustain a brain injury.
Falling back on a fully developed brain? Children do not have the option because their brains are still in the process of growing. If a child’s brain is injured while it is still developing the brain can continue to lag behind.
Some good news that comes out of this is something that researchers have to say. They said that children’s brains can start developing again after an injury. Families and doctors can help improve the child by providing rehabilitation and a supportive environment. “Better still is when we providing information and education about how to prevent injuries and to take steps to lessen the damage when a minor or moderate head injury does occur,” stated Ben McAdams, Salt Lake County Mayor.
According to the most recent data from the Utah Health Department there are about 22 percent of injuries which require hospitalization and they come from sports or recreational activities. Salt Lake County Parks and Recreation employees are dedicated to helping your kids and their families stay healthy and active through a variety of recreational programs.
Parks and Recreations provide training for coaches and employees for youth sports programs.
They have utilized expertise and resources of partners like the Brain Injury Alliance and SL County Health Department. The SL County Rec. plans to expand this training and education to include parents and participants in rec. programs. The injury prevention staff works to prevent injury and focus on the top three causes of TBI:
-
Falls
-
Motor vehicle crashes
-
Sports and recreation
We were able to hear from 4 people who were effected by a brain injury. Morgan Neibar, 17, she was only 14 when she got two different concussions. One was from basketball and the other was from softball. She got them within six months of each other. The after effect of the concussion was difficult for her, she had problems concentrating, learning new things as well as remembering things that she already knew. She also had problems with her balance and was not able to see well because her vision was blurry.
She started going to school for shorter periods of time “I went to two or three classes. The teachers would read me my assignment, I would answer the questions and they would write them down.” Her parents had to help her with her homework and she wasn’t able to read anything. The teachers and her parents were very understanding of the situation but she said, “I think that we need to have students be more understanding and educate the teachers a little bit more.”
She believes that the best thing that student athletes can do is impact testing before sports so that they can have a baseline in case a head injury does occur.
Allyson Barraza received her first concussion in 2013 when she was 13-years-old; she was playing high school soccer. At the time of the concussion she did not know what the symptoms were and how bad they were. “What could have been a short term recovery has taken me nearly two years,” said Barraza.
Concussions are very serious. When she started treatment she was going through a lot of medications with the hope that time itself would just heal her brain. She went to the Utah University Concussion Clinic and there saw Colby Hansen. There they recommended that she get vision therapy, so she did, and in doing so it has helped her concussion and helped her heal while she keeps her academic grades in good shape.
Through the past six months she realizes “I am getting back to myself.” She believes that the youth and athletes should learn more about concussions as well so that they may know what to recognize and what their bodies are telling them before it is too late.
Austin Price is one of many football players who received a concussion while playing the sport. He was unable to remember anything after the incident nor did he remember anything for quite a while after the incident. He went into the doctors and they said that it was a pretty severe concussion. He missed two weeks of school and then started going back for just half of the day. Most of his teachers were very understanding and let him make up work that he had missed.
Basketball season came around and he thought that he would give it a go. While playing he noticed that he wasn’t feeling himself so he went back into the doctors. He was diagnosed with depression which stimulated from the concussion. “It took a couple months of being on medication and stuff to kind of be feeling back to normal,” said Price. With the help of doctors and teachers he was able to overcome his concussion.
Beau Bertagnolli, 26, has sustained three concussions all while playing hockey. All of the concussions symptoms have progressively gotten worse. When he got his first concussion at the age of 18 information about concussions were unknown and less of a big deal.
The second one he received at the age of 23, luckily this time he was a little bit more aware of the situation. With help from the medical staff at the University of Utah he was able to recover very quickly. At the time of the incident sports were still a very high priority so he had no problem just missing school and taking time off to heal.
The most recent injury was about two months ago and he said “it was the most severe however, my priorities have kind of shifted. I didn’t give myself time to heal. I continued going to school, work and studying.” Things this time were getting worse for Price, until he saw a different doctor and took her advice to just rest. He was very fortunate in recovery, which only took a week or two.
