A reflection on " Protecting the brain against concussion" from Kim Gorgens TedTalk.
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| Retrieved from: What Western does when an athlete may have a concussion | Sports | westerngazette.ca |
To further my learning on traumatic brain injuries, I decided to watch the TedTalk "Protecting the brain against concussion" by Kim Gorgens. Kim Gorgens is a neuropsychologist. She specializes and is an expert in how brain injuries and conditions affect our behavior, mood, and thinking. She started by telling us that more than 4 million people get a concussion yearly. She also stated the facts that car crashes, boxing, and football cause the most impact in terms of a concussion. The average impact is 95 Gs and surprisingly football has an impact of 103 Gs.
She also stated that a concussion is not a loss of consciousness however, it's a change in consciousness. Symptoms of a concussion include headaches, irritability, confusion, amnesia, dizziness, ringing in the ears, nausea, slurred speech, and fatigue. Another thing Kim brought up that I thought was interesting was that the brain is designed to recover from an injury and usually fully recovers in a couple days/weeks however, children are more vulnerable to brain injuries and may take longer to recover. I also learned that high school athletes are 3 times more likely to sustain catastrophic injuries compared to college peers. When someone endures 1 concussion, they are more prone or at higher risk for a 2nd and 3rd concussion, and so on.
Kim states that research suggests that among retired NFL players with 3 or more career concussions, the incidence of early-onset dementia is much greater than in the general population. This is important to know especially when it comes to occupational therapy. Knowing this, the occupational therapist will understand why a relatively young person is experiencing this, and how might they address the issue. Depending on what area of the brain is affected, determines the approach on interventions and how the client is affected. This all ties back to my neurobiology course and the different parts of the brain. The U.S Department of Health and Human Services explained that brain images showed an increase of white matter damage in the frontal lobes, temporal lobes, and the hippocampus of individuals that have a concussion. Each lobe or other areas of the brain are associated with different things. For example, if someone experienced a concussion and there was damage to the frontal lobe, they may experience difficulties with problem solving, expressive language, etc. The therapist would be able to address these issues.
I recommend others to watch this video to further their learning on this topic. It gave great information and interesting facts. One main reason I chose this video was because many people sort of just brush concussions off, and don't really take them seriously, especially where I'm from. At my high school there were plenty of times when a football athlete clearly had a concussion, however their caregivers or the athletes themselves didn't take it serious and would never go to the doctor's office/hospital to get it checked out and would just continue to go to school and play sports. By watching this video, they would gain a whole new perspective on concussions! This video also mentions a great website that can be used (listed in below in references) as a tool to have a better understanding on traumatic brain injuries and concussions.
References
Kim Gorgens. (2010). Protecting the brain against concussion [Video]. TedTalk.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Brain injuries from concussions still evident decades later. National Institute on Aging. https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/brain-injuries-concussions-still-evident-decades-later#:~:text=Brain%20imaging%20showed%20that%20concussed,remained%20across%20follow%2Dup%20visits.
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