How to Protect Athletes from Brain Injury After Suffering a Concussion

It is well-known from our own common experience watching our own children as well as amateur and professional sports that players in many sports, including soccer, hockey, football, and lacrosse, can suffer what appear to be concussions when they get their “clock rung”. We now know that “shaking it off” to “get the cobwebs out” are just expressions used to force athletes who were injured to get back into the game before they should. We also know that altitudes can cause permanent brain damage including a loss of memory, dementia, depression and other functional defects. A partial, simple, solution to these terrible consequences of head injuries is to require that the player be taken out of the game when there are signs or symptoms of injury. The player should have been evaluated immediately and allowed to rest their injured brain. The player should not be permitted to return to play until all of the effects of the concussion are removed.