Transcripts For CSPAN3 Discussion On Youth Sports Injuries 2

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the National Press clubs Morning Newsmaker Program here in washington, d. C. Todays topic is preventing youth sports concussion and what washington, d. C. , is doing about it. One of the first major metro areas in the region to provide a grant for research, education and monitoring of concussions in youth sports. And were also here to talk about other youth sports injury. This newsmaker panel will offer an examination of data, trends and concussion research, state policies and whether or not the u. S. Department of education should adopt federal compliance mandates. Every state in the union has a concussionrelated law on the books and a sports and youth Injury Program regulation on the books. Enforcement is the issue, and compliance is the issue, and thats what the doctors here this morning and the sports data person is going to be talking to us about. My name is mike smith, and i serve on the National Press Club Newsmaker committee, and the committee is chaired by jamie horwitz, and our staff facilitator is joanne booz who helped us get it started today. Im a columnist for campaigns and elections magazine and a blog writer for huffington post. I also own my Public Affairs shop called greensmith Public Affairs in reston and ive been a member of the National Press club for about 25 years. I tweet as both submittypa and greensmithpr, so youll see a lot of tweets, and our hashtag is dcconcussions, plural. This newsmakers is being broadcast live on cspan and will be Available Online as well at press. Org. And youll find Additional Information under our National Press club site. The website, www. Press. Org. And in the record newsletter following the newsmaker. Various press releases have been put out on the wire concerning Health Research under way here in washington, d. C. About one year ago, washingtons department of health provided a grant to Childrens National medical medstar and the agency for student Health Research also operating with injure free as their Technology Platform to collect data and information from parents, students, teachers and coaches and to provide education about concussion as well as diagnostic and initial screening questions to help student athletes. This newsmaker will refer to a monitoring education and Prevention Program being funded by the d. C. Department of health and will be implemented on the playgrounds of the d. C. Parks and rec department. The will smith movie concussion documenting the life and times of pathologist dr. Bennett amalo has returned attention to the issue of football and concussions. In fact, this morning on cbc sports, theres an item we just saw on the Cable Network about a youth sports cte injury, a young athlete names keck and the student had suffered from cte it was found. So its not just nfl players. The movie noted that the first autopsy which helped identify cte in a pittsburgh Football Player indicated a player might be hit tens of thousands of times in the head by the time they go from peewee to youth to high school up until college and then onward to pro football. The actuarial shows they might suffer from brain trauma or injury. But well not limit this discussion to football or even concussion in youth sports. Were talking about injury across the board. And theres a lot going on with youth soccer and not allowing headers in the early parts of Young Athletes careers. Societys really becoming aware of this issue. And so is congress. And so are the states. And ill just mention a few things that have happened in the last few weeks on the hill and in the statehouses that will allow us to provide for a policy discussion as well as a Technology Platform discussion. Its interesting, as a member of the press club, to see that we have education beat reporters. We have technology, sports, and weve had the health and medical. So this issue traverses a lot of different beats. We want to draw a bit on the recent news on the hill which fred upton has said reaches epidemic proportions as a Public Health issue. Three days before christmas, fred upton called for an investigation of concussions. He announced the broad review in his statement for the health sorry, the house energy and commerce committee. Chairman upton announced theyll discuss a broad injuries in the new year through his oversights on investigations, health and commerce. And this will include medical experts, professionals, nih, military, collegiate sports and the science and Research Community and other stake holders. Upton said we often hear about concussions in the context of Service Members and athletes, but this program goes well beyond the battlefield and gridiron. Its a matter of Public Health as these injuries are prevalent in all ages and across all population. Unfortunately, theres a lot we dont know about head trauma. How it affects different subsets of the population, short and longterm effects and other details critical of affecting diagnostics and treatments. And he said thanks to Public Awareness increasing in recent years, there are promising efforts under way and Congress Wants to better understand that. We have an opportunity to improve our understanding and better care for our kids and families. Another congressional caucus that has begun to take action on this matter is the congressional youth sports caucus. There actually is a congressional youth sports caucus. And two of the chairs are mark vici of texas and ron kind of wisconsin. They work to promote health, safety, fun and physical activity among players, sports leaders and parents. And what weve learned just in talking together is that this is really a partnership between educators, schools, parents, coaches and student athletes. So what is this caucus doing around the issue of concussion . Were finding out in the new year that the caucus plans to meet and continue discussions on youth sports injury as well. And finally, id like to go to the statehouse. And in this case richmond. On a state level, just on the 15th of december last year, the Virginia Commission on youth conducted a study providing a dozen recommendations to the governor, terry mcauliffe, and Virginia Department of education secretary, ann houlton, some of them centered on concussion. The first of which is requesting the department of health and the department of education Work Together to assess the feasibility of conducting regional information training on updated concussion guidelines and concussion awareness. Bdh previously adopted guidelines for policies on discussions of student athletes. So the departments are encouraged, and then the state of virginia, the u. S. Center for Disease Control guidelines, the cdc guidelines which jerry will talk about in a minute and other nationally recognized resources for presenting information to our communities. The information presented should focus on identification of concussion, the use of smartphone applications, and shortterm and longterm Health Effects of concussions and safety precautions. Its interesting that the commission on youth in virginia is asking for smartphone applications. Things that can be used right on site and injurefree is going to talk a little bit about that and the use of big data, cloudbased technology, and the ability to bring it right down to your smartphone on the playing field. So now let me introduce our guest speakers and panelists here at the newsmaker. And what well do is have each of them speak for a few minutes and then well have a roundtable discussion. Dr. Gerard joya is the division chief of neuropsychology and the director of the safe concussion outcome recovery and Education Program at Childrens National Health System, or s. C. O. R. E. Is a professor at g. W. S Medical School and directs the neurobehavioral Core Research labs for Childrens National clinical and Translational Science Institute and the intellectual and Developmental Disabilities research center. Dr. Joya treats persons and families are brain injuries with dual areas of interest involving the executive function and pediatric concussion mild traumatic brain injury. Hes been the Principal Investigator of several cdc funded Research Studies of mild tbi with the focus on development of methods, tools for the evaluation and executive function and postconcussion neuropsychological functioning. Hes developed several smartphone apps, and hell be talking a lot about the d. C. Grant and what were doing to develop this current application. And they have neurocognitive tests for concussion and postconcussion symptom scales for children and parents. He works very closely with cdc on their headsup concussion Educational Programs as contributing author to the toolkit. Dr. Joyas been an active participant in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 International Concussion and sport Group Consensus meeting and the American Academy of neurology sports concussion guideline author panel. Hes a Team Neuropsychologist for the capitals and the baltimore ravens. Although he just told me hes a giants fan. So theres your first scoop. He consults with the local and National Governing organizations of ice hockey, lacrosse, football, soccer and rugby and is on the medical Advisory Committee for usa football and the National Advisory board of the positive coach ago lines. Dr. Michael yokelsen is Vice President of medical affairs at the Medstar National Rehabilitation hospital, medstar here in washington. Hes a boardcertified psychologist and neurologist. Currently he served as medical director of the Brain Injuries Program and associate medical director of the Neurology Program at medstar. He also is the Program Director of the brain injury medicine fellowship training program. Hes a graduate of g. W. Universitys medicine and Health Sciences school and completed his residency training. Previously he served as a staff fission physician, sleep dysfunction and spacity management. Hes an active member of the Brain Injury Association in maryland. Hes an associate professor of clinical neurology and clinical rehabilitation medicine at georgetown and holds an adjunct staff position with the Rand Corporation studying traumatic brain injury in Service Members returning from deployment. He also serves on the fdas scientific Advisory Board for orphan products grant program. Hes received numerous awards including the outstanding educator award in physical medicine and rehab at georgetown. Hes recognized as one of the top docs in washington at medstar. Charlie wand flew from san diego and made it through ohare yesterday. Hes executive director of the agency for student Health Research and founder of the injurefree platform for monitoring, educating and engaging all stakeholders in concussion and other youth sports injury prevention. Injurefree is the cloudbased Data Analytics system powering the works of the doctors. He graduated from marietta where he played four years of football and charlie also played two years of ncaa lacrosse. He studied at San Diego State earning his masters in educational facility design and is a registered educational facility planner. Charlie is a former Elementary School classroom teacher. He was the Athletic Director at the San Diego Jewish academy where he also coached football, baseball, softball and basketball at the school. Charlie was the Athletic Director at the san diego ymca, and he coached football and sorry, baseball and softball at st. Albans there. He founded the agency for student Health Research which then developed this injurefree app and data platforms. So yes, when it comes to traumatic brain injury, theres an app for that. And were going to find out how its being informed. So its been one year since washington, d. C. , provided its grant for the d. C. Department of health. Around march the study work and i guess acquisition of data and information got under way. And were at about the ninemonth mark now of starting to bring in surveys, information from parents, patients, students and dr. Joyas here to tell us a little bit about how thats going and then give us a primer a little more on the issue of youth sports injury. Dr. Joya. Thank you mike. And thank you all for coming to hear about this important issue here. Were talking today about not only concussion and its effect on kids, says but ultimately, what we can do as a society to both prevent, at the very least minimize the effect on kids and families. And were going to talk about the District Of Columbias legislation that was passed several years ago that is really attempting to put prevention and Early Intervention into place. I think its important to recognize that any good policy has to be based on Good Research evidence. On data that allows us to make the best kinds of decisions that we can. And what we know in the field of mild traumatic brain injury, or concussion, is that the research right now for our youth populations is really minimal. In fact, the institute of medicines report in 2013 identified that we were lacking in terms of our ultimate knowledge of this injury in kids. Most of our research has been at the collegiate and professional levels or in a more narrow group of High School Male Football Players. So our ability to make good policy decisions for younger kids and for girls involved in sports is not based on good Scientific Evidence at this point. But nevertheless, we, back in 2009, recognized that we needed to do something. And the state of washington, there was a youngster named zachary lystat who unfortunately sustained two blows to the head in an eighth grade football game. Unbeknownst to his coaches or to his parents. And unfortunately suffered a permanent brain injury. As a result, the state of washington and one of my good friends and colleagues, dr. Stan herring, and the Brain Injury Association, wanted to put out a good educational platform and program for coaches and for parents. And they did that on a voluntary basis. What they found was that when they went out to educate the public, there was, at best, a modest interest in the issue. They then brought it to the statehouse, and they recognized that they were going to have to legislate this process. And the zachary lystat law was passed in 2009. Now, quite amazingly, over the next five years, every state and the district have put a somewhat similar law into place. But i will say that the District Of Columbia has really distinguished itself in its policy, in its legislation in that it, number one, included not Just High School sports, which about twothirds of our laws at this point still only focus on, but also included youth sports, that is kids age 5, 6, 7, 8, it included private schools, not just public schools. It also included what we need to be doing to help kids after the injury occurs, and in particular, how we return somebody to school that is where a youngster goes to work every day. And so its quite the comprehensive program. But i will also say that even more uniquely, they put their money where their mouth was. And they have funded Childrens National Health System and medstar and provided us the opportunity to bring charlie and injurefree in to educate and train coaches and parents to be sure that we are getting to School Nurses to really lay the foundation for making our kids sa