Listening Time — 41
Move Forward Radio hosted a multiday "Head in the Game" series on concussion in sports. The series featured interviews with experts in the evaluation, treatment, and prevention of sports concussions. It also includes an interview with a former NFL player who was forced to retire due to repeated concussions.
Part 1
Chris Miller, the thirteenth overall pick of the 1987 NFL Draft. He played nine NFL seasons for the Atlanta Falcons and Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams before repeated concussions forced him to leave the game in 1996. A comeback attempt in 1999 was cut short by concussions. Miller discusses his personal history with concussions. He also talks about how the game has changed to protect players.
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Part 2
Anne Mucha, PT, MS, NCS, is a physical therapist in the Center for Rehabilitative Services at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She specializes in neurovestibular rehabilitation. She has treated a number of athletes, including former Baltimore Orioles' second baseman Brian Roberts. Mucha discussed some of the ways athletes are tested for concussions. She also talks about rehab from concussion for a return to the playing field and long-term health.
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Part 3
In Part 3, Kevin Guskiewicz, PhD, ATC, FACSM, and Mike Ryan, PT, ATC, discuss the evolution of concussion awareness and management. They also talk about the importance of proper tackling technique in football. Plus they give advice to parents who might have children competing in any sport.
Kevin Guskiewicz, PhD, ATC, FACSM, is the founding director of the Matthew Gfeller Sport-Related Traumatic Brain Injury Research Center and the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also serves as the chair of Exercise and Sport Science. Over the past 17 years, his clinical research program has focused on sport-related concussion. Guskiewicz has investigated the effect of sport-related concussion on balance and neuropsychological function in high school and collegiate athletes. He has also researched the biomechanics of sport concussion and the long-term neurological effects of concussion in retired professional football players. In September 2011, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for "exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work."
Mike Ryan, PT, ATC has been the head athletic trainer and physical therapist of the Jacksonville Jaguars since 1994. For six seasons, he was an assistant athletic trainer and physical therapist for the New York Giants. Ryan and his Jaguars staff won the Ed Block Courage Award’s NFL Athletic Training Staff of the Year in 2003. He is the president of the Professional Football Athletic Trainers' Society Research & Education Foundation. He also is a member of the Sports Concussion Medical Advisory Board.
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