June 30, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode of Broken Brains, host Bruce Parkman engages with Dr. Annabelle Shaffer, a neurosurgery resident, to discuss the critical issues surrounding repetitive brain trauma, particularly in youth sports. They explore the impact of concussions, the importance of education for coaches and parents, and the ongoing research into brain health. Dr. Shaffer shares insights from her studies on concussions in high school athletes and emphasizes the need for awareness and preventive measures to protect young athletes from long-term neuropsychiatric effects. The conversation highlights the importance of understanding the risks associated with contact sports and the necessity for a cultural shift towards safety in sports participation. If you're a veteran, first responder, or someone interested in the future of trauma treatment, this episode is packed with insights and practical knowledge.
🎧 Like, share, and subscribe to Broken Brains on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts to support veteran mental health and stay updated on breakthrough healing modalities.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is sponsored by The Mac Parkman Foundation
Â
Support The Mac Parkman Foundation by donating today!
https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=CR24MY2GDUCZL
Â
Get the Head Smart App Today!
https://www.mpfact.com/headsmart-app/
Â
Follow Dr. Shaffer on LinkedIn today!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annabelle-shaffer/
Two Days. One Mission. Protecting Brains, Saving Lives. September 3rd and 4th in Tampa, Florida.
Save the date for our international event focused on protecting young athletes and
honoring our veterans through real solutions to brain trauma.
Brought to you by The Mac Parkman Foundation.
Join us for the 1st Annual Lazzaro Legacy Classic Golf Tournament — a day of community, competition, and impact. Every dollar raised helps fund skills training, mentorship, and athletic opportunities for underprivileged high school athletes striving to reach the next level.
Saturday, June 28th, 1:30 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
Produced by Security Halt Media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken
Brains with your host, bruceParkman, sponsored by the Mack
Parkman Foundation, the largestnational voice on the issue of
repetitive brain trauma.
We're on the show.
We look at the issues ofrepetitive brain trauma.
On the show, we look at theissues of repetitive brain
trauma, from repetitive headimpacts in contact sports to
(00:31):
repetitive blast exposure forour military veterans and what
these conditions are doing totheir brains.
That's resulting in the largestpreventable cause of mental
illness in this country, and whythis is of such concern.
Because this is not taught inmedical, nursing or
psychological courses right now.
So our children, our athletesand veterans are undiagnosed,
and this is why you need to beinformed, so that you can
(00:54):
protect those that you love andyou can protect yourself.
On the show, we reach out tothe leading researchers,
scientists, patients, advocates,technologies on the issues of
brain health, so we canunderstand not only more about
how this is impacting Americans,but what we can do about it and
how we can actually treat itand provide hope to the millions
(01:14):
of Americans that are sufferingfrom mental illness as a result
of this exposure.
On our show today, anotheramazing guest, ms Annabelle
Schaefer, who's a medical doctor, ms, and she's a neurosurgery
resident at the Henry FordHealth, having earned her
medical degree from CarlIllinois College of Medicine in
2025.
With a strong foundation innutrition and dietetics, holding
(01:36):
both bachelor's and master'sdegree from the University of
Illinois, urbana-champaign, sheintegrates her diverse academic
background into her medicalpractice.
Dr Schaefer's research focuseson head trauma very important
here innovative spied trauma,another outcome of head trauma,
and focal epilepsy.
She has contributed to over 20publications, with notable work
(01:57):
on youth sports concussions,feeding in journals like
neurosurgery and neurosurgicalfocus, and her research has also
been highlighted by mediaoutlets such as WGN Chicago and
WFLD Chicago, which is great manwe always love.
People like to go on TV.
And beyond her clinical andresearch work, dr Schaefer is
active in organized neurosurgerythrough the AANS and CNS joint
(02:18):
section on neurotrauma andcritical care and the Drugs and
Devices Committee, where sheleads social media outreach.
Her interdisciplinary approachand commitment to advancing
neurosurgical care reflect astrong dedication to improving
patient outcomes.
Dr Schaefer, welcome to theshow and thank you for coming on
, thank you, thank you forhaving me.
(02:38):
Oh, it's our pleasure.
We love talking to doctors andresearch because we're always
wondering what the heck's goingout there.
Now, you are a recent, recentgraduate, I guess 2025 yes,
graduated this weekend ah,congratulations.
All right, now you're alreadygetting into public.
Uh, you know public podcastsand stuff.
Good on you.
What, what got you into brains?
(03:00):
Why is, uh, why is spine trauma?
Why?
Why is this important to you?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
At some point in childhood, I think I just
decided that I wanted to be aneurosurgeon for really no other
reason than it sounded supercool.
And then, as I got older, Itook some neuroscience courses,
shadowed some neurosurgeons inhigh school and college and
really loved it.
And then starting medicalschool, I went into it thinking
(03:31):
something neuro but was stillrelatively open and just started
working with some of ourneurosurgeons at Carl Foundation
Hospital and working with themon research and getting into the
ORs and found the experience tobe so rewarding to see patients
with devastating brain injuriesor brain tumors or spinal
injuries and see theneurosurgeons help them get back
(03:52):
to a new normal or somethingfairly close to what their
previous normal was and decidedthat was what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And that's important for our audience to understand,
is that there is a way back,whether your brain injury comes
from a traumatic event like acar crash or a violent incident
or the result of repetitivebrain trauma, that there is hope
Now, having not met too manyneurosurgeons, I mean, what do
(04:20):
you do?
Do you like operate on thebrain?
Or I mean, do you open it up?
Or you know what's neurosurgeryentail?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
So I would still say I have a pretty limited
knowledge, being that I startresidency in June.
But yes, you do open up theskull, you can take out tumors
from the brain, you can take outblood if there's been a trauma,
you may resect some brain ifthe trauma led to some death of
the brain tissue or in the spine.
(04:51):
You know, often you're removingbone to decompress the nerve
roots or the spinal cord andperhaps adding some metal in
there and bone graft to fuse andstabilize the spine if there's
been trauma as well.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And how long is your residency going to take?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It will be seven years.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Seven years, so you just got started.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yes, yes, I am just getting started.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Good on you, but it doesn't take seven years of
knowledge to understand how, youknow, the brain is impacted by
what we call repetitive braintrauma and what we need to do
from there.
So you know, to our audiencethat's parents from a contact
sports perspective, you knowwhat's your understanding of how
(05:37):
these sports are impactingthese children, or even an adult
brain with you know thesechildren, or even an adult brain
with you.
Know the amount of thelong-term exposure that these
people are being, you know, aresubject to when they play
contact sports for a large partof their lives.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
My work's primarily in high school athletes and what
we see is that after aconcussion, people often have
neuropsychiatric symptoms thatcan be transient and typically
resolve in one to two weeksSymptoms like headache,
dizziness, difficultyconcentrating, insomnia, feeling
more emotional, things likethat.
(06:13):
Those typically resolve in twoweeks for the normal healthy
person.
But research shows that as headinjuries add up and you get
more and more, there's potentialfor long-term consequences
which are still, I think, verymuch being investigated as to
what those look like,particularly when those head
hits are accumulated in youthsports, you know, prior to
(06:38):
professional league, which isdefinitely an open area of
research right now.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Absolutely is definitely an open area of
research right now.
Absolutely.
And when you talk about, youknow, symptomatic, you know the
two weeks that's, you know,that's usually, you know, a
concussion, or the.
You know, like my son had, youknow, three concussions, two
that we know about, we think onemight've been a concussion or
whatever, and that was thestandard of care two weeks, you
know, and then go back, you know, you know, come on back and
(07:03):
you're pretty much cleared.
Is that still the protocoltoday?
Or what's being added to adjustthat?
Because we're hearing now thatthey, you know it's recommended
that these children can, thatthey exercise or they, they do
something.
It's not just sitting in a darkroom for two weeks.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, the dark room has definitely changed.
I would say.
You know my cousins who are myage in high school.
They had concussions and theywere told to lie in a dark room
for a week.
So it's been a fairly recentchange.
But the current guidelines havea relative rest period for like
24 to 48 hours.
So relative rest being, youknow, the child's at home
(07:45):
they're doing some light reading, maybe some light walking
around the house, but no running, no heavy schoolwork, things
like that.
And then as they progressthrough, they're working with,
hopefully, an athletic trainer,another clinician, and they go
from.
If we look at return to sport,they'll do some aerobic exercise
and make sure their symptomsaren't increasing during that
(08:07):
and then they'll work their wayup to some individual sport
drills that are specific totheir sport and then eventually
work their way up to going topractice and then after that
practice they'll go back to fullplay.
And what's really important is,throughout that whole process,
that they're being monitored forsymptoms.
If their symptoms increaseabove what they consider a mild
(08:28):
exacerbation, then they shouldstay at that level or drop a
level in that progression.
We really don't want them goingback into sports, you know,
still being quite symptomatic.
That would indicate they're notfully healed at that point.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And what kind of symptoms are we talking about
for us?
Or you know our parents thatare on the podcast Like what
should they be looking out forBecause they're part of the
assessment as well.
They see the kids 24-7 for themost part, or, you know, with
the exception of school time.
So what kind of symptoms are wetalking about?
Are we still talking aboutheadaches and pain, or are there
other symptoms that they shouldbe looking out for?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Headaches, dizziness, trouble sleeping, trouble
concentrating, feeling moreemotional or feeling additional
anxiety things like that as wellare all great symptoms for
parents to be checking in with,as well as their athletic
trainers.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
And on the emotional side, you know a lot of parents.
You know, especially when youtalk to teenagers, right,
emotional emotions are justthat's a teenager, right, their
hormones are going, they'rematuring and having had two
daughters, right, emotions is,you know, that's the name of the
game.
So what can they do to look atemotions?
And to you know, look at whichemotions are my daughter being a
(09:48):
daughter or my son being a son,and which motions are could be
indicative of a deeper problem.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I don't know that it's so much a specific emotion
but more how does the childcompare to their baseline.
So obviously a parent's goingto know best what their child's
baseline anxiety level is orbaseline emotional level is, and
if something feels off fromthat, then that may be
indicative that they're stillexperiencing symptoms.
We found in our research thatfemales were more likely, both
(10:20):
at baseline and after aconcussion, to have more severe
emotional symptoms.
So it's important to compare tothat child's baseline, either
if they have a baselineassessment like a sport
concussion assessment tool orSCAT, or just knowing your child
and what their baseline is.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
And you know, on these, you know SCATs and the
baseline test, there's aplethora.
You know, on these, you knowscats and the baseline test,
there's a plethora.
But it's big word Wednesday, sothe old sard major man, I can't
talk too well.
So we got a plethora ofdifferent baseline tests and we
also know that most of ourschools don't baseline, you know
.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What's your feeling on that, on that particular
issue and on having a baseline,no-transcript, unique in that a
lot of schools don't have thefeasible.
(11:28):
It's not feasible to dobaselines for several hundred
kids every year, and so there isdebate whether it's best to
have the personalized baseline,like in our case we do, or
having a comparative normativevalue.
So if we take, you know, 2,000students who all have a baseline
and they're, all you know,14-year-old girls, can we just
(11:52):
use that average value tocompare to another 14-year-old
girl and kind of use that as asurrogate baseline?
So that's one of our projectsright now is that we, since we
do have these numbers ofbaselines, that we're working to
publish those values tohopefully help schools that
don't have personalizedbaselines at least have a
(12:12):
suspected norm value for eachchild based on several
characteristics.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Okay, and you know, and then, as a as part, talk to
us about the research.
So what research are?
What research have youconducted?
I mean, there's 20 papers, man,you participate in quite a
number of studies, and then youknow what research is ongoing,
especially prevalent toconcussions, because I do want
to dial into this for ouraudience, so that they become
(12:39):
more aware of what's going on in2025 instead of what we knew
when it was 1985 or you knowback then, where you know, I
just shake it off and get backin the game.
You know.
I mean, obviously, concussionsare a more significant concern
today, but tell us about theresearch that you're working on.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Sure.
So, as the bulk of my researchis focused on high school
athletes using our data set, andso a little bit more about the
data set.
We have athletic trainers whoare partnered with our hospital,
who go out to these schools andthey conduct baseline SCATs.
Right now we're using SCAT 5.
We'll eventually move to SCAT 6.
And they conduct that each yearin children and then, as
(13:20):
students have an injury, they'llbe reassessed and then that
return to play protocol, returnto learn, is all monitored by
our trainers, and so we get thatbacklog of data.
We've had data going since 2009.
So we have several thousandstudents enrolled in the study,
and so our first paper wepublished looked at just the
baseline values and seeing howthey differ from year to year.
(13:43):
So is doing a test freshmanyear and junior year?
Is that baseline still reliable?
Sophomore year and senior year,or do we potentially need
baselines at shorter intervalsto make sure we still have an
accurate baseline?
And in that study, at least forour population, we found
generally core to moderatereliability, and the reliability
(14:04):
went down as the interim timebetween testing went up, and so
that indicated to us that we mayneed to do additional work to
see where that reliability isgetting decreased.
And so we have an upcomingstudy that's looking at how does
a scat differ from just startof the season to the end of the
(14:26):
season and then also throughoutthe season each week.
How do students rate theirsymptoms?
So part of SCAT is a 22-itemsymptom checklist.
So dizziness, headache, etcetera, scored zero to six, 16,
severe zero being none, and sodoing that every week to see how
are these symptoms changing,since a lot of them are, as you
(14:47):
mentioned you know, generalsymptoms of just kind of being a
person or being a teenager.
So we want to see how thosechange and if they're stable
over time.
And then the second part of thatresearch project that we've
already conducted and publishedwas looking at of the
concussions we have recorded inour database.
How are they actually occurring, you know, are they occurring
(15:10):
in games?
Are they occurring in practice?
Do they involve a blow or hitto the head?
Do they involve a fall, Thingslike that?
And then also looking at therisk factors and potential
protective factors involved insport-related concussions.
Of course that's in referenceto our central Illinois
population.
And then our most recent studywas a review paper looking at
(15:35):
just comprehensive look toprovide an update on high school
sport-related concussions toclinicians, and so we reviewed
several papers looking at theepidemiology of concussions,
potential preventative methods,as well as the return to play,
the return to school protocols.
(15:56):
And then our next paper is, asI said before, looking at those
normative reference values, soseeing if we can take our
population and boil down thedata to be kind of a guideline
set of values for schools thatdon't have a personalized
baseline, so that we can givethem something to reference when
their student does have a SCATafter an injury.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Wow, there's a lot going on.
Now.
This SCAT now, given that youknow a lot of schools don't
baseline, I know our schooldidn't and then I can't remember
that that baseline at the testthat a lot, of, a lot of people
had back in the day.
But you know, can a can aparent, you know, do a scat?
I mean, the scats aredownloadable document online Is
(16:39):
there?
Is that something that anyparent could do just to kind of
get an idea of where their kidis?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
It is freely available.
However, the standardrecommendation is that a
clinician trauma at all Do theyassess.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You know, total aggregate or you know,
repetitive head impact exposure.
(17:13):
Like do they ask questions onhow long have you been playing
contact sports?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
The background information of the SCAT asks
about prior concussions andprior hospitalization for head
injuries.
The other components of theSCAT are there's a cognitive
component, so things like givinga word list and asking the
student to repeat back as manyof the words as they can
remember and then coming back afew minutes later and seeing if
(17:40):
their delayed recall is intact.
So I told you this list of 10words.
Tell me as many as you remember.
And then there's also a balancecomponent.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I hate those tests.
Those are old man tests.
I hate those tests, by the way.
So okay, go ahead, you fix.
Go ahead, man.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
There's also a balance component.
So having the student hold acouple stance positions and
seeing how many errors they maketo indicate a higher score
would be higher level of errors,so more poor balance, all right
.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
So I mean, they don't really assess for that, and
that's, you know.
That's something that we're,you know, trying to get people
to understand and maybe you canhelp us with this.
All right, it is known thatrepetitive head impacts do
impact the brain.
Right, it creates a cascade ofeffects.
From you know, from yourperspective, you know what can
(18:41):
be done.
I mean, well, first of all, doyou are you, you know, we are
you do you agree with theconcept that you know RHI
damages the brain and that thatdamage can result in mental
illness due to the long-termexposure of these children?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, from what I've read of the literature, I think
there's definitely effects thatare long-term and we probably
don't know all of them at thistime that repetitive head
injuries can add up to causelong-term neuropsychiatric
symptoms and potentially braindamage.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And you know we're the foundation that worked with
Boston University to actuallypublish the first study on under
30 brains that showed that youknow that was funded by our
organization.
We're actually re-releasing thatbecause, while 42% of them had
CTE and that was a CTE communitywe think the fact that 100% of
the brains were damaged, 100% ofthem had severe, you know,
(19:38):
psychiatric behavioral disordersand 80% of them died by suicide
, is I think that's a little bitmore alarming here and I think
that's something that we need towork on because, you know, rhi
is really not taught.
You just graduated in 2025.
Did you have any courses onsubconcussive trauma, repetitive
(20:00):
impacts on the brain, at all?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I don't believe, so Most of what I've learned has
been through external research.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And this is, I think you know that's not good.
I mean, we got millions ofchildren playing contact sports
and if you put on a helmet oryou hit a soccer ball, you're
being exposed to this and wehave an entirely untrained
population out there on thisissue.
How do you think we shouldaddress that?
What could we do?
(20:31):
I mean, is it I don't knowseminars?
I mean, should it be part ofthe career?
I mean, I lost my son to this.
That was validated by, you know, a complete assessment along
with all these other kids.
You know, how do you?
You know, how do we?
You know in your mind, could weaddress this from an
educational perspective with ourneurological, psychiatric
(20:56):
medical community so we canstart assessing and then, you
know, providing a diagnosis orat least getting the kids and
the parents to understand.
You might want Tommy to stopright now, or Sally to stop
hitting these soccer balls.
I don't know what's yourthoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Sorry to hear about your son.
Of course, I think one of theeducational initiatives that has
shown some success is educatingcoaches on concussions and the
symptoms of concussions and alsowhen to pull students out of
the game, and that's been shownto reduce concussions.
And then from the medical side,I think we get a lot of
(21:35):
education on neurology ingeneral, but not a lot on how
the concussive hits add up.
Cte is taught about, but not tothe extent as maybe other
disorders, which probably isrelated back to that.
We don't have a fullunderstanding of it.
So I think as the researchcontinues to show effects of
(21:59):
concussive head injuries, it'llstart making its way into
medical curriculum as well.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
I think you're right and I don't want to put you on
the spot, you're not speakingfor the whole neurological
community over here.
I just wanted to point out thatyou know that this is really
not understood.
Yet it is universally acceptedby all these sports.
Yet these neurologists and allthese specialists are like, are
you crazy?
I'm like, why aren't youallowed?
It's not good for their brain,why don't I know this as a
(22:41):
parent, right, and this is thekind of things that we're slowly
working on.
But you brought up a good pointwith the data that you're
collecting.
So, and what's the data show,like the amount, the concussions
?
You said that you, you canunderstand which concussions
took place in during the game orin practice.
What was the ratio?
Or what did you, what was your,what did you find in?
Speaker 2 (23:01):
that.
So majority across all sportstake place in competitions and
that's seen at collegiate levelsof sports as well, probably
related to, you know, higherthey're in full contact at the
time of a game and then alsojust higher stakes as well.
We do see a high proportion ofthem occurring in cheer practice
(23:23):
in our data, so that indicatesa potential area for improvement
in safety measures andcheerleading and dance sports.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Sure, yeah, and a lot of people don't understand how
concussive that activity is.
I don't know if it's a sport orwhat, right, I mean it's.
It's like people call golf asport.
I'm like that's more of a hobby.
All right, I'm sorry.
You know you know, and so youknow but.
Or an activity, you know I just, but you know that's.
You know that.
Um, you know but.
Or an activity, uh, you know Ijust, but uh, you know that's.
You know that.
(23:53):
That's interesting.
What, what other uh areas ofimprovement can we have when it
comes to, at least on theconcussion side, that parents
could, that could indicate thatyou know the, the, the coaches
and the, the athletic trainersare are more aware than the
usual.
You know, let the coaches andthe athletic trainers are more
aware than the usual.
You know, let's just wait.
(24:14):
Let's wait till Tommy gets hurtand then we'll do something
about it right.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I think one thing parents can look for, ask their
coaches about, is if they've hadany kind of concussion
education, training.
So one of the initiatives withfootball is called Heads Up
Football.
The CDC also has a number ofresources available for parents
on concussions so they can bewatchful of the symptoms and
learn more about the statisticsof concussions in each sport.
(24:40):
And then I think also for allparents is just creating an
environment within their teamthat tells kids it's okay to
report concussions, it's okay toreport symptoms.
This isn't something to hide.
We know a lot of concussions gounreported either to students
don't have the knowledge of howto report them or what a
(25:01):
concussion looks like.
They feel fearful thatreporting it will, you know, let
down their team or they'll loseplaying time.
So I think parents and studentscan really contribute to a
safety culture on any team sportthey're a part of.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And were you aware that the Heads Up program just
got terminated by thisadministration?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
I feared for that when I saw that they were
reducing funding.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, almost all the TBI research, the CDC heads-up
program, which we still haveproblems with because the
heads-up program is onlyconcussion-focused, which you
know.
Concussions are not good, butthey're not as common as
repetitive head impacts and Ithink we can agree, that's yeah,
and that's where we werepushing to get them to
(25:48):
understand that this is thelarger risk.
The concussions can be treated,they can be healed, but there's
RHI, these lifestyles that weneed to modify.
You know our behavior on thatand for our parents, you know it
is.
I think you know I think it'spresupposed that if your child
has had one concussion, they'reprobably more likely to have
(26:11):
another, or that the follow-onconcussion might be more severe.
What are your thoughts on that?
What's the knowledge on that?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Our research showed that having one concussion, a
prior concussion or priorhospitalization for head injury
was associated with an increasedrisk of another concussion.
And also we know that sendingchildren back into play too soon
after a concussion so you knowthey're going through that
return to play protocol butthey're still having high levels
of symptoms when they're sentback into play Sent back into
(26:42):
play too soon is also associatedwith higher risk of concussion.
So we want to make sure allchildren are fully healed before
we send them back into play.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
And what can parents do to assure themselves that
that child is fully healed?
I mean, we have, you know, I'msure you're aware that we have
the sports crazy parents thatwant their kids back in more
than the kid wants to play, andyou have coaches who really
don't want their star players tolead the team.
You know, and you know, andstuff like that.
So what can a parent do thatcan say, you know, that wants
(27:17):
not to challenge the system butto make sure should they take an
extra week?
Or what are your thoughts onyou know the parent wanting to
protect their child from youknow you know another injury.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Protect their child from you know, another injury.
It's challenging right nowbecause a lot of our concussion
tools deal with symptoms thatare, you know, self-reported by
the student.
There's limited objective dataat this time to support that
they're either fully healed ornot fully healed.
It's not like a yes no that wecan tell from a blood test right
now, and so I think parentshave to just have that open
(27:51):
dialogue with their studentathlete and make sure they feel
that they're back to theirnormal before heading back into
play.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Okay, and what are your recommendations on now?
We funded a study that showedthat, by day 35, the potential
for suicidality or suicidalideation greatly increased after
a concussion, which is prettyalarming because, you know,
(28:22):
nobody thinks of concussionsafter two weeks.
Right, kids, back on the field,they're acting normal, you know
whatever, or, you know,abnormal, depending on how crazy
the kid might, you know, be intheir, their, their, in their
path.
Right, you know that's the wayit is.
But, um, how do we, um, youknow, go back and take a look at
you know?
Uh, you know, post concussionsurveys?
(28:44):
Okay, these are not a toolthat's regularly used to monitor
the child for at least 30 daysfor the same things that we
talked about in the baseline.
Do you use post-concussionsurveys, do you recommend them,
or what's your perspective onthose for parents to monitor
their children?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
We don't currently use them.
I think if your child is beingdeemed by a medical professional
, that's the first step andcertainly if the child ever
expresses any kind ofsuicidality, then parents should
be alarmed and take their childto their pediatrician or the
emergency department somethingto get immediate help.
But I can't speak too much topost-concussion surveys.
(29:29):
That's a bit outside my scope.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Okay, Well, I mean so they're available on our
website.
And just so the parents knowout, there is that it is
recommended, 30 days after aconcussion, to monitor your
child for at least that long,and even longer, because these
surveys are very subjectiveseries of questions.
But the bottom line is yourchild just went back to playing
(29:55):
sports and to your.
You know, Ms Schaefer, DrSchaefer, excuse me, you know
when.
What is the?
You know, if the child's brainis not fully healed and they go
back to sports, what are therisks to the child?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They can certainly have a more potential for a more
severe concussion.
They're more likely to getanother concussion if not fully
healed, and then repetitiveinjuries certainly do add up,
and they may be at risk forlong-term symptoms that we don't
fully understand at this timethat we don't fully understand
at this time.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Wow, and that's a lot for parents to understand.
And that brings us back to theissue of more brain-safe sports.
Are there sports?
As a neurologist, you wouldrecommend the parents for their
children to play above otherswhen it comes to brain health.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I know we're such a sport-crazy country that it's
hard to say, you know, don'tplay football or don't play
soccer.
But I think prioritizinglower-risk sports you know,
cross-country things like thatis certainly something parents
could consider, but I don't wantto make any kind of outright
recommendation.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I'll make an outright statement, since I'm not a
trained physician at this time.
Well, don't worry about it, butall right.
Well, let me ask you this Doyou think that?
Do you think it's surprisingthat there's no basketball or
baseball brains that have beendiagnosed with CTE at the Boston
University?
Cte brain.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I am a little surprised, as those sports still
have reasonably high concussionrates, particularly basketball
elbows to the heads, knees tothe head.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Right, but certainly football is your dominating
sport, right, but certainlyfootball is you're dominating,
right, but those sports do nothave repetitive head impacts.
They have concussions.
You cannot avoid the concussion, but they don't have RHI.
And so you know, yeah, and Ithink that's something that you
know.
I was just doing some researchthe other day.
(32:07):
I'm like, wow, because wealways have to, you know, put
you know some kind of you know.
We got to put it in layman'sterms Like well, actually, you
know, if you really want to know, you know there's soccer people
in there, there's rugby,there's football, there's hockey
, you know.
But when you come down to brain, safe sports, and there's
there's, you know, it's kind oflogical or correlation, at least
(32:30):
you know to us.
But I didn't want you to put onsports to.
Are you going to let your kidsplay football?
probably not okay, as a mom, I'mjust saying all right, you know
, that's it.
It's just, you know it's.
It's good to know.
If I would have been aseducated as you or as I am right
now, I absolutely would havesaid no and uh, and let's talk
(32:55):
about that.
You know, one of the problemswith our son that I allowed to
happen is that I allowed him toplay back to back concussive
sports.
He was a blindside, uh, uh,offensive, I think it's a tackle
or a guard, and um, and nobodytouched that quarterback when my
son was playing bad, uh God, hewas awesome.
(33:16):
And then he was a wrestling guy, getting ready to be the
wrestling captain wrestlingcaptain on football and so that
was.
You know, we started in July,went all the way through March
and then, of course, you know,we were snowboarders and skiers
and my son refused to takelessons.
So he's out there banging hishead.
What is your, you know, from anRHI perspective perspective?
(33:45):
What is in your, in your mind,as a, you know, future mom or
mom, I don't know your childstatus at this time.
Um, as an educated neurologist,you know what is your advice to
parents?
Because you can now playfootball year round.
Now, right, you can play hockeyaround or, you'd like my son,
you can play a combination ofsports that have we call them
high-risk sports.
You know when is too much toomuch.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
I think parents should go into these collision
sports with eyes wide open aboutthat.
They do carry a risk ofrepetitive head injury and
concussions and make sure thatthey're evaluating those risks
for themselves.
You know when we're startingthese sports younger and younger
(34:30):
you know tackle football ingrade school.
I think it's of utmostimportance that parents really
sit down and consider what therisks are to their child and
think about you know also thebenefits of being involved in
sports there are certainlybenefits to team sports and
weigh those risks for themselves.
But definitely go in eyes wideopen and think about those.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And so you know to a parent right, you know you're a
neurologist when is their childat six years old?
Right, where is their child'sbrain in terms of development
and what are the risks to thatbrain?
I mean, you know that brain hasbeen ordained by our Lord to
have a natural growth trajectoryover 25 years or pick your
(35:17):
number to get to a maturationstage that's really not supposed
to be shook or, you know,banged around or whatever.
And you can't avoid theoccasional kick on a horse or
falling down in basketball.
Or you know they're kids, right, they're going to have, you
know they're going to hurt theirhead here and there.
But you know one of the reasonsthat we're and I'm not a, I'm
(35:40):
not a neurologist, I'm aneducated man on this issue, but
you're a brain specialist, right, where are their child?
Like when you start eventhinking about contact sports,
or now they got slap leagues andboxing it's like what are we
doing with these kids brains?
I mean, where is their brain atthis juncture?
It's just a grade school andwhat are the risks to the brain
(36:03):
in terms of development, ofparticipation in these sports?
Your opinion I'm not asking foryou know your opinion.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
The brain is still very much actively developing.
It develops well into adulthood, and so I don't think we know
quite yet what the impacts areof you know having a concussive
hit at six versus you know 26.
How does that affect theirlong-term trajectory of brain
health?
I'm not sure we know that rightnow, and so I think that just
(36:34):
goes back to the risks andbenefits that parents need to
consider whenever they'reenrolling their child in any
kind of collision.
Sport is that you have toconsider that as a potential
risk?
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Well, the concussions are one thing, but what about
repetitive head injuries whenyou have sports, like, you know,
football, or a league, like thehockey rugby right now, where
they don't really have too manylimits on, you know, kids, but
you know football is the largestone because you really it's
hard to, you know, unless you doflag football, which is an
awesome option at the age of six, right, but you know, we're
(37:10):
speaking to the parents outthere that are, you know, hell
bent on.
This is the way I've done it,this is the way I'm doing it,
but from a repetitive headinjury perspective, that
continuous, you know, you knowimpact to their, to their brain,
what's, what's your perspectiveon that?
Speaker 2 (37:30):
I think one thing parents can do is just explore
the options out there withdifferent leagues so different
leagues will have differentkinds of rules and seeing what
the policies are in their state.
So some states have differentallowances on how many contact
days a sport can have, how manypractices a sport can have.
(37:51):
Things like that can beeffective.
Lower contact days and lowerpractice times in football have
been shown to reduce headinjuries.
We also see in hockey leaguesleagues that disallow body
checking have lower concussiverates.
So looking for policies likethat and understand how those
(38:13):
influence concussion rates andof course that influences
repetitive head injuries as wellis important for parents to
understand those repetitive headinjuries as well is important
for parents to understand.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
You just brought up an amazing fact, okay, that by
taking contact, lowering contacton practice days, you know, can
reduce the amount of headinjuries.
It also reduces the amount oftotal aggregate exposure to
repetitive head impacts.
So are you seeing that in newsports now?
(38:41):
Because not from a concussionperspective, because it's kind
of inverse you have moreconcussions on game day than
practice days, right, but youhave far more RHI exposure on
you know.
You figure, somebody's footballlike my son's football team
practiced five days a week butthen they had a game day, or at
least four days a week.
You know that's.
That means game days.
(39:07):
You know, 20% of your totalaggregate exposure.
What are you seeing out therein the high school world right
now that might indicate thatwe're taking this seriously?
Or, you know, is there anychange coming when it when it
comes to reducing, reducingexposure in practice, which
would be an amazing change if wecould make that happen.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
There are certainly studies out there that have
shown when schools did reducethe number of contact days that
there were reductions in headinjuries.
And for instance, Illinois justpassed to reduce the contact
days in the summer.
I don't know if that wasrelated to head injuries in
their decision making, but Ithink programs are starting to
(39:47):
reduce those contact days as asafety measure for children.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Well, I wish yeah, I mean it sounds good, I mean, but
we're seeing it, you know,league by league or sport by
sport, no-transcript school withmitigating circumstances that
(40:31):
it might be okay for parents totake a look at this.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I'm not sure that there's an exact age available
yet.
I think the name of the game isjust prevention at this point,
and so looking for ways to makea sport safer and reduce
potential for impact is probablywhere we're we should focus
right now.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I don't see you are you are age to start concussion
or to start impact.
Yeah, we're, we're, we areadvocating at least to the age
of 14, when the prefrontalcortex starts developing, and
then if we could just take thepractice out of contact or the
contact out of practice, thenthese kids will be a lot better.
(41:15):
You know from an RHIperspective.
You know from an RHIperspective and you've done an
amazing job dodging the manholesin this very, very complicated
discussion, because you know butit is very important that our
parents hear from you, knowtrained professionals, that you
know there is risk.
It should be judged and tojudge, you know they should be
knowledgeable.
(41:36):
Where can parents go?
Of course, you know the bestbook ever written on the issue I
wrote.
It's available for free on ourwebsite.
But where else can parents goto understand the issue of
repetitive head impacts andconcussive trauma to their
children, in order to be moreinformed, because you just can't
(41:58):
make decisions withoutinformation more informed,
because you just can't makedecisions without information.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I think right now it's obviously all our
government websites are a littlebit up in the air, but
certainly looking at what theCDC offers, what NIH and other
institutes offer, is a greatstart.
And then also asking thechild's pediatrician or if they
already see a sports medprofessional or if their school
has an athletic trainer.
Those people are all greatresources on concussion
(42:26):
education and care.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And can you explain the difference to our audience
between you know a primary carephysician, right, and a
concussion specialist?
Because you know, we definitely.
You know we want to make sure,like I didn't even know there
was such thing.
So my son had a concussion.
You know we definitely.
You know we want to make sure,like I didn't even know there
was a such thing.
So my son had a concussion.
You know I've had so many ofthem from playing rugby.
I was like, all right, let's gosee the doctor, and you know
(42:51):
we're going to do what thedoctor says.
You know we're not going to bemessing with this and we did,
but it wasn't enough because ofyou know his lifestyle.
So you know, explain to the youknow the audience, like from a
concussion perspective, whatshould they be looking for?
Because you definitely do notwant to be playing around with
this if your child is has beeninjured, especially in the brain
(43:14):
.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I would start with that child's pediatrician and
request to potentially see ifthe pediatrician thinks maybe a
pediatric neurologist who wouldbe an expert on brain health,
particularly in children and howtheir brain's developing, or a
sports medicine physician wouldalso be a great person to be
referred to if they think theirchild's having more severe
(43:40):
symptoms or not recovering aswell as they would expect.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Okay, great answer.
Final question All right,you're off the hook because
you've been doing an amazing jobhere.
What is the most surprisingrevelation that you've seen
regarding head trauma in theresearch that you've done?
Is there anything out therethat just stands out that was,
(44:08):
you know, that was not shocking,but it was like surprising that
, hey, I didn't know this right.
And what can you think ofsomething that surprised you in
the findings, or is there morethan one?
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I think one thing I'm really excited about is looking
at where the biomarker researchis going to go.
As I said, we don't have agreat.
There's no test to say, yes,you're fully healed from your
concussion or no, you're not.
A lot of it's very subjectivetesting, and so I think
biomarkers have the potential tobe more informative and provide
objective data that caninfluence someone's trajectory
(44:48):
to recovery, and so that's anarea of research I'm very
excited about right now.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
All right, and as we get ready to close, tell us a
little bit more about DrAnnabelle Schaefer.
What are you doing right now?
What do you plan on doing?
And then, how does our audiencefind you to if they need more
information or want to followyou in the research that you're
performing right now?
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I just graduated medical school at Carl Illinois
College of Medicine and thenthis June I'll start my
residency in neurologicalsurgery at Henry Ford Hospital
in Detroit, Michigan, and ifyou'd like to follow my research
updates, I can be found onLinkedIn as well as Twitter,
where I post upcoming papers andrecently published work.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Well, Dr Schaefer, you have been an amazing source
of information for our audience,and it's not all the time that
we get I think.
I think you're the firstneurologist to come on the show,
so congratulations.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Not a neurologist yet .
All right, I'll be aneurosurgeon eventually, in
seven years.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
All right.
Well, you're the first futureneurosurgeon we've had on the
show, for sure, and.
But you've been a source ofknowledge and our, our audience
depends on qualifiedprofessionals to give them the
advice right, to give them, youknow, some, just some thoughts
on these issues, so that they dotake these contact sports a
little bit, or a lot moreseriously than you know, of
(46:13):
course, I did back in the day,cause they're just not harmless.
I want to thank you so much forthe time that you gave us today
and I wish you all the best onyour journey as you become a
neurosurgeon.
I would like to follow yourresearch.
We invite you to attend oursummit on repetitive brain
trauma in September 3rd and 4thof this year, held in Tampa, and
(46:34):
I want to wish you all the bestas you go forth on your journey
in life, and may God bless you.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Thank you so much, denny.
Oh, and as we close out, denny,always a shout out to my
producer who just graduatedMagna Cum Laude crazy Denny man,
best producer in podcasts inthis country.
As we close, I want to saythank you for another wonderful
episode of Broken Brains,sponsored by Mack Parkman
Foundation.
(47:01):
Please look them up.
They are the national voice inrepetitive brain trauma and the
only voice out there.
Go to their website.
Their free book, broken Brains,is a very informative tool.
They have an app on the Googleand Apple store called Head
Smart.
It's got the book on it.
You can inform your parents.
You can do local searches forconcussion specialists.
(47:22):
Please be informed on thistopic.
Coming up September 3rd and 4this our second International
Summit on Repetitive BrainTrauma.
You are all quarterly invited.
We have some very awesomepoliticians invited, military
commanders as well as some ofthe top-notch researchers in CTE
, neurology, contact sports andother aspects of repetitive
(47:45):
brain trauma to includediagnosis and treatment.
It's going to be a fascinatingconference and we can't wait to
hold it and we'll keep youupdated.
Please go to our website,wwwmpfactorg, to get more
information.
And to all of you, as we closeout please take care of
yourselves, please take care ofthose brains you only got one
(48:06):
and stay informed.
God bless you all.
Take care.
Oh, and please like us, pleasesubscribe or please follow us on
Twitter, facebook, instagram,whatever there is out there.
Let us know we're reaching moreand more people every week
because of amazing guests likeDr Schaefer and really putting
out the information that youneed to know.
Take care y'all.
We'll see you next time onBroken Brains.
(48:27):
You.
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of Broken
Brains with your host, bruceParkman, sponsored by the Mack
Parkman Foundation, the largestnational voice on the issue of
repetitive brain trauma.
We're on the show.
We look at the issues ofrepetitive brain trauma.
On the show, we look at theissues of repetitive brain
trauma, from repetitive headimpacts in contact sports to
(00:31):
repetitive blast exposure forour military veterans and what
these conditions are doing totheir brains.
That's resulting in the largestpreventable cause of mental
illness in this country, and whythis is of such concern.
Because this is not taught inmedical, nursing or
psychological courses right now.
So our children, our athletesand veterans are undiagnosed,
and this is why you need to beinformed, so that you can
(00:54):
protect those that you love andyou can protect yourself.
On the show, we reach out tothe leading researchers,
scientists, patients, advocates,technologies on the issues of
brain health, so we canunderstand not only more about
how this is impacting Americans,but what we can do about it and
how we can actually treat itand provide hope to the millions
(01:14):
of Americans that are sufferingfrom mental illness as a result
of this exposure.
On our show today, anotheramazing guest, ms Annabelle
Schaefer, who's a medical doctor, ms, and she's a neurosurgery
resident at the Henry FordHealth, having earned her
medical degree from CarlIllinois College of Medicine in
2025.
With a strong foundation innutrition and dietetics, holding
(01:36):
both bachelor's and master'sdegree from the University of
Illinois, urbana-champaign, sheintegrates her diverse academic
background into her medicalpractice.
Dr Schaefer's research focuseson head trauma very important
here innovative spied trauma,another outcome of head trauma,
and focal epilepsy.
She has contributed to over 20publications, with notable work
(01:57):
on youth sports concussions,feeding in journals like
neurosurgery and neurosurgicalfocus, and her research has also
been highlighted by mediaoutlets such as WGN Chicago and
WFLD Chicago, which is great manwe always love.
People like to go on TV.
And beyond her clinical andresearch work, dr Schaefer is
active in organized neurosurgerythrough the AANS and CNS joint
(02:18):
section on neurotrauma andcritical care and the Drugs and
Devices Committee, where sheleads social media outreach.
Her interdisciplinary approachand commitment to advancing
neurosurgical care reflect astrong dedication to improving
patient outcomes.
Dr Schaefer, welcome to theshow and thank you for coming on
, thank you, thank you forhaving me.
(02:38):
Oh, it's our pleasure.
We love talking to doctors andresearch because we're always
wondering what the heck's goingout there.
Now, you are a recent, recentgraduate, I guess 2025 yes,
graduated this weekend ah,congratulations.
All right, now you're alreadygetting into public.
Uh, you know public podcastsand stuff.
Good on you.
What, what got you into brains?
(03:00):
Why is, uh, why is spine trauma?
Why?
Why is this important to you?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
At some point in childhood, I think I just
decided that I wanted to be aneurosurgeon for really no other
reason than it sounded supercool.
And then, as I got older, Itook some neuroscience courses,
shadowed some neurosurgeons inhigh school and college and
really loved it.
And then starting medicalschool, I went into it thinking
(03:31):
something neuro but was stillrelatively open and just started
working with some of ourneurosurgeons at Carl Foundation
Hospital and working with themon research and getting into the
ORs and found the experience tobe so rewarding to see patients
with devastating brain injuriesor brain tumors or spinal
injuries and see theneurosurgeons help them get back
(03:52):
to a new normal or somethingfairly close to what their
previous normal was and decidedthat was what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And that's important for our audience to understand,
is that there is a way back,whether your brain injury comes
from a traumatic event like acar crash or a violent incident
or the result of repetitivebrain trauma, that there is hope
Now, having not met too manyneurosurgeons, I mean, what do
(04:20):
you do?
Do you like operate on thebrain?
Or I mean, do you open it up?
Or you know what's neurosurgeryentail?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
So I would still say I have a pretty limited
knowledge, being that I startresidency in June.
But yes, you do open up theskull, you can take out tumors
from the brain, you can take outblood if there's been a trauma,
you may resect some brain ifthe trauma led to some death of
the brain tissue or in the spine.
(04:51):
You know, often you're removingbone to decompress the nerve
roots or the spinal cord andperhaps adding some metal in
there and bone graft to fuse andstabilize the spine if there's
been trauma as well.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
And how long is your residency going to take?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
It will be seven years.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Seven years, so you just got started.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yes, yes, I am just getting started.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Good on you, but it doesn't take seven years of
knowledge to understand how, youknow, the brain is impacted by
what we call repetitive braintrauma and what we need to do
from there.
So you know, to our audiencethat's parents from a contact
sports perspective, you knowwhat's your understanding of how
(05:37):
these sports are impactingthese children, or even an adult
brain with you know thesechildren, or even an adult brain
with you.
Know the amount of thelong-term exposure that these
people are being, you know, aresubject to when they play
contact sports for a large partof their lives.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
My work's primarily in high school athletes and what
we see is that after aconcussion, people often have
neuropsychiatric symptoms thatcan be transient and typically
resolve in one to two weeksSymptoms like headache,
dizziness, difficultyconcentrating, insomnia, feeling
more emotional, things likethat.
(06:13):
Those typically resolve in twoweeks for the normal healthy
person.
But research shows that as headinjuries add up and you get
more and more, there's potentialfor long-term consequences
which are still, I think, verymuch being investigated as to
what those look like,particularly when those head
hits are accumulated in youthsports, you know, prior to
(06:38):
professional league, which isdefinitely an open area of
research right now.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Absolutely is definitely an open area of
research right now.
Absolutely.
And when you talk about, youknow, symptomatic, you know the
two weeks that's, you know,that's usually, you know, a
concussion, or the.
You know, like my son had, youknow, three concussions, two
that we know about, we think onemight've been a concussion or
whatever, and that was thestandard of care two weeks, you
know, and then go back, you know, you know, come on back and
(07:03):
you're pretty much cleared.
Is that still the protocoltoday?
Or what's being added to adjustthat?
Because we're hearing now thatthey, you know it's recommended
that these children can, thatthey exercise or they, they do
something.
It's not just sitting in a darkroom for two weeks.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah, the dark room has definitely changed.
I would say.
You know my cousins who are myage in high school.
They had concussions and theywere told to lie in a dark room
for a week.
So it's been a fairly recentchange.
But the current guidelines havea relative rest period for like
24 to 48 hours.
So relative rest being, youknow, the child's at home
(07:45):
they're doing some light reading, maybe some light walking
around the house, but no running, no heavy schoolwork, things
like that.
And then as they progressthrough, they're working with,
hopefully, an athletic trainer,another clinician, and they go
from.
If we look at return to sport,they'll do some aerobic exercise
and make sure their symptomsaren't increasing during that
(08:07):
and then they'll work their wayup to some individual sport
drills that are specific totheir sport and then eventually
work their way up to going topractice and then after that
practice they'll go back to fullplay.
And what's really important is,throughout that whole process,
that they're being monitored forsymptoms.
If their symptoms increaseabove what they consider a mild
(08:28):
exacerbation, then they shouldstay at that level or drop a
level in that progression.
We really don't want them goingback into sports, you know,
still being quite symptomatic.
That would indicate they're notfully healed at that point.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And what kind of symptoms are we talking about
for us?
Or you know our parents thatare on the podcast Like what
should they be looking out forBecause they're part of the
assessment as well.
They see the kids 24-7 for themost part, or, you know, with
the exception of school time.
So what kind of symptoms are wetalking about?
Are we still talking aboutheadaches and pain, or are there
other symptoms that they shouldbe looking out for?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Headaches, dizziness, trouble sleeping, trouble
concentrating, feeling moreemotional or feeling additional
anxiety things like that as wellare all great symptoms for
parents to be checking in with,as well as their athletic
trainers.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
And on the emotional side, you know a lot of parents.
You know, especially when youtalk to teenagers, right,
emotional emotions are justthat's a teenager, right, their
hormones are going, they'rematuring and having had two
daughters, right, emotions is,you know, that's the name of the
game.
So what can they do to look atemotions?
And to you know, look at whichemotions are my daughter being a
(09:48):
daughter or my son being a son,and which motions are could be
indicative of a deeper problem.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I don't know that it's so much a specific emotion
but more how does the childcompare to their baseline.
So obviously a parent's goingto know best what their child's
baseline anxiety level is orbaseline emotional level is, and
if something feels off fromthat, then that may be
indicative that they're stillexperiencing symptoms.
We found in our research thatfemales were more likely, both
(10:20):
at baseline and after aconcussion, to have more severe
emotional symptoms.
So it's important to compare tothat child's baseline, either
if they have a baselineassessment like a sport
concussion assessment tool orSCAT, or just knowing your child
and what their baseline is.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
And you know, on these, you know SCATs and the
baseline test, there's aplethora.
You know, on these, you knowscats and the baseline test,
there's a plethora.
But it's big word Wednesday, sothe old sard major man, I can't
talk too well.
So we got a plethora ofdifferent baseline tests and we
also know that most of ourschools don't baseline, you know
.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What's your feeling on that, on that particular
issue and on having a baseline,no-transcript, unique in that a
lot of schools don't have thefeasible.
(11:28):
It's not feasible to dobaselines for several hundred
kids every year, and so there isdebate whether it's best to
have the personalized baseline,like in our case we do, or
having a comparative normativevalue.
So if we take, you know, 2,000students who all have a baseline
and they're, all you know,14-year-old girls, can we just
(11:52):
use that average value tocompare to another 14-year-old
girl and kind of use that as asurrogate baseline?
So that's one of our projectsright now is that we, since we
do have these numbers ofbaselines, that we're working to
publish those values tohopefully help schools that
don't have personalizedbaselines at least have a
(12:12):
suspected norm value for eachchild based on several
characteristics.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Okay, and you know, and then, as a as part, talk to
us about the research.
So what research are?
What research have youconducted?
I mean, there's 20 papers, man,you participate in quite a
number of studies, and then youknow what research is ongoing,
especially prevalent toconcussions, because I do want
to dial into this for ouraudience, so that they become
(12:39):
more aware of what's going on in2025 instead of what we knew
when it was 1985 or you knowback then, where you know, I
just shake it off and get backin the game.
You know.
I mean, obviously, concussionsare a more significant concern
today, but tell us about theresearch that you're working on.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Sure.
So, as the bulk of my researchis focused on high school
athletes using our data set, andso a little bit more about the
data set.
We have athletic trainers whoare partnered with our hospital,
who go out to these schools andthey conduct baseline SCATs.
Right now we're using SCAT 5.
We'll eventually move to SCAT 6.
And they conduct that each yearin children and then, as
(13:20):
students have an injury, they'llbe reassessed and then that
return to play protocol, returnto learn, is all monitored by
our trainers, and so we get thatbacklog of data.
We've had data going since 2009.
So we have several thousandstudents enrolled in the study,
and so our first paper wepublished looked at just the
baseline values and seeing howthey differ from year to year.
(13:43):
So is doing a test freshmanyear and junior year?
Is that baseline still reliable?
Sophomore year and senior year,or do we potentially need
baselines at shorter intervalsto make sure we still have an
accurate baseline?
And in that study, at least forour population, we found
generally core to moderatereliability, and the reliability
(14:04):
went down as the interim timebetween testing went up, and so
that indicated to us that we mayneed to do additional work to
see where that reliability isgetting decreased.
And so we have an upcomingstudy that's looking at how does
a scat differ from just startof the season to the end of the
(14:26):
season and then also throughoutthe season each week.
How do students rate theirsymptoms?
So part of SCAT is a 22-itemsymptom checklist.
So dizziness, headache, etcetera, scored zero to six, 16,
severe zero being none, and sodoing that every week to see how
are these symptoms changing,since a lot of them are, as you
(14:47):
mentioned you know, generalsymptoms of just kind of being a
person or being a teenager.
So we want to see how thosechange and if they're stable
over time.
And then the second part of thatresearch project that we've
already conducted and publishedwas looking at of the
concussions we have recorded inour database.
How are they actually occurring, you know, are they occurring
(15:10):
in games?
Are they occurring in practice?
Do they involve a blow or hitto the head?
Do they involve a fall, Thingslike that?
And then also looking at therisk factors and potential
protective factors involved insport-related concussions.
Of course that's in referenceto our central Illinois
population.
And then our most recent studywas a review paper looking at
(15:35):
just comprehensive look toprovide an update on high school
sport-related concussions toclinicians, and so we reviewed
several papers looking at theepidemiology of concussions,
potential preventative methods,as well as the return to play,
the return to school protocols.
(15:56):
And then our next paper is, asI said before, looking at those
normative reference values, soseeing if we can take our
population and boil down thedata to be kind of a guideline
set of values for schools thatdon't have a personalized
baseline, so that we can givethem something to reference when
their student does have a SCATafter an injury.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Wow, there's a lot going on.
Now.
This SCAT now, given that youknow a lot of schools don't
baseline, I know our schooldidn't and then I can't remember
that that baseline at the testthat a lot, of, a lot of people
had back in the day.
But you know, can a can aparent, you know, do a scat?
I mean, the scats aredownloadable document online Is
(16:39):
there?
Is that something that anyparent could do just to kind of
get an idea of where their kidis?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
It is freely available.
However, the standardrecommendation is that a
clinician trauma at all Do theyassess.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You know, total aggregate or you know,
repetitive head impact exposure.
(17:13):
Like do they ask questions onhow long have you been playing
contact sports?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
The background information of the SCAT asks
about prior concussions andprior hospitalization for head
injuries.
The other components of theSCAT are there's a cognitive
component, so things like givinga word list and asking the
student to repeat back as manyof the words as they can
remember and then coming back afew minutes later and seeing if
(17:40):
their delayed recall is intact.
So I told you this list of 10words.
Tell me as many as you remember.
And then there's also a balancecomponent.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I hate those tests.
Those are old man tests.
I hate those tests, by the way.
So okay, go ahead, you fix.
Go ahead, man.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
There's also a balance component.
So having the student hold acouple stance positions and
seeing how many errors they maketo indicate a higher score
would be higher level of errors,so more poor balance, all right
.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
So I mean, they don't really assess for that, and
that's, you know.
That's something that we're,you know, trying to get people
to understand and maybe you canhelp us with this.
All right, it is known thatrepetitive head impacts do
impact the brain.
Right, it creates a cascade ofeffects.
From you know, from yourperspective, you know what can
(18:41):
be done.
I mean, well, first of all, doyou are you, you know, we are
you do you agree with theconcept that you know RHI
damages the brain and that thatdamage can result in mental
illness due to the long-termexposure of these children?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Yeah, from what I've read of the literature, I think
there's definitely effects thatare long-term and we probably
don't know all of them at thistime that repetitive head
injuries can add up to causelong-term neuropsychiatric
symptoms and potentially braindamage.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
And you know we're the foundation that worked with
Boston University to actuallypublish the first study on under
30 brains that showed that youknow that was funded by our
organization.
We're actually re-releasing thatbecause, while 42% of them had
CTE and that was a CTE communitywe think the fact that 100% of
the brains were damaged, 100% ofthem had severe, you know,
(19:38):
psychiatric behavioral disordersand 80% of them died by suicide
, is I think that's a little bitmore alarming here and I think
that's something that we need towork on because, you know, rhi
is really not taught.
You just graduated in 2025.
Did you have any courses onsubconcussive trauma, repetitive
(20:00):
impacts on the brain, at all?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I don't believe, so Most of what I've learned has
been through external research.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
And this is, I think you know that's not good.
I mean, we got millions ofchildren playing contact sports
and if you put on a helmet oryou hit a soccer ball, you're
being exposed to this and wehave an entirely untrained
population out there on thisissue.
How do you think we shouldaddress that?
What could we do?
(20:31):
I mean, is it I don't knowseminars?
I mean, should it be part ofthe career?
I mean, I lost my son to this.
That was validated by, you know, a complete assessment along
with all these other kids.
You know, how do you?
You know, how do we?
You know in your mind, could weaddress this from an
educational perspective with ourneurological, psychiatric
(20:56):
medical community so we canstart assessing and then, you
know, providing a diagnosis orat least getting the kids and
the parents to understand.
You might want Tommy to stopright now, or Sally to stop
hitting these soccer balls.
I don't know what's yourthoughts on that.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Sorry to hear about your son.
Of course, I think one of theeducational initiatives that has
shown some success is educatingcoaches on concussions and the
symptoms of concussions and alsowhen to pull students out of
the game, and that's been shownto reduce concussions.
And then from the medical side,I think we get a lot of
(21:35):
education on neurology ingeneral, but not a lot on how
the concussive hits add up.
Cte is taught about, but not tothe extent as maybe other
disorders, which probably isrelated back to that.
We don't have a fullunderstanding of it.
So I think as the researchcontinues to show effects of
(21:59):
concussive head injuries, it'llstart making its way into
medical curriculum as well.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
I think you're right and I don't want to put you on
the spot, you're not speakingfor the whole neurological
community over here.
I just wanted to point out thatyou know that this is really
not understood.
Yet it is universally acceptedby all these sports.
Yet these neurologists and allthese specialists are like, are
you crazy?
I'm like, why aren't youallowed?
It's not good for their brain,why don't I know this as a
(22:41):
parent, right, and this is thekind of things that we're slowly
working on.
But you brought up a good pointwith the data that you're
collecting.
So, and what's the data show,like the amount, the concussions
?
You said that you, you canunderstand which concussions
took place in during the game orin practice.
What was the ratio?
Or what did you, what was your,what did you find in?
Speaker 2 (23:01):
that.
So majority across all sportstake place in competitions and
that's seen at collegiate levelsof sports as well, probably
related to, you know, higherthey're in full contact at the
time of a game and then alsojust higher stakes as well.
We do see a high proportion ofthem occurring in cheer practice
(23:23):
in our data, so that indicatesa potential area for improvement
in safety measures andcheerleading and dance sports.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Sure, yeah, and a lot of people don't understand how
concussive that activity is.
I don't know if it's a sport orwhat, right, I mean it's.
It's like people call golf asport.
I'm like that's more of a hobby.
All right, I'm sorry.
You know you know, and so youknow but.
Or an activity, you know I just, but you know that's.
You know that.
Um, you know but.
Or an activity, uh, you know Ijust, but uh, you know that's.
You know that.
(23:53):
That's interesting.
What, what other uh areas ofimprovement can we have when it
comes to, at least on theconcussion side, that parents
could, that could indicate thatyou know the, the, the coaches
and the, the athletic trainersare are more aware than the
usual.
You know, let the coaches andthe athletic trainers are more
aware than the usual.
You know, let's just wait.
(24:14):
Let's wait till Tommy gets hurtand then we'll do something
about it right.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I think one thing parents can look for, ask their
coaches about, is if they've hadany kind of concussion
education, training.
So one of the initiatives withfootball is called Heads Up
Football.
The CDC also has a number ofresources available for parents
on concussions so they can bewatchful of the symptoms and
learn more about the statisticsof concussions in each sport.
(24:40):
And then I think also for allparents is just creating an
environment within their teamthat tells kids it's okay to
report concussions, it's okay toreport symptoms.
This isn't something to hide.
We know a lot of concussions gounreported either to students
don't have the knowledge of howto report them or what a
(25:01):
concussion looks like.
They feel fearful thatreporting it will, you know, let
down their team or they'll loseplaying time.
So I think parents and studentscan really contribute to a
safety culture on any team sportthey're a part of.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
And were you aware that the Heads Up program just
got terminated by thisadministration?
Speaker 2 (25:23):
I feared for that when I saw that they were
reducing funding.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, almost all the TBI research, the CDC heads-up
program, which we still haveproblems with because the
heads-up program is onlyconcussion-focused, which you
know.
Concussions are not good, butthey're not as common as
repetitive head impacts and Ithink we can agree, that's yeah,
and that's where we werepushing to get them to
(25:48):
understand that this is thelarger risk.
The concussions can be treated,they can be healed, but there's
RHI, these lifestyles that weneed to modify.
You know our behavior on thatand for our parents, you know it
is.
I think you know I think it'spresupposed that if your child
has had one concussion, they'reprobably more likely to have
(26:11):
another, or that the follow-onconcussion might be more severe.
What are your thoughts on that?
What's the knowledge on that?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Our research showed that having one concussion, a
prior concussion or priorhospitalization for head injury
was associated with an increasedrisk of another concussion.
And also we know that sendingchildren back into play too soon
after a concussion so you knowthey're going through that
return to play protocol butthey're still having high levels
of symptoms when they're sentback into play Sent back into
(26:42):
play too soon is also associatedwith higher risk of concussion.
So we want to make sure allchildren are fully healed before
we send them back into play.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
And what can parents do to assure themselves that
that child is fully healed?
I mean, we have, you know, I'msure you're aware that we have
the sports crazy parents thatwant their kids back in more
than the kid wants to play, andyou have coaches who really
don't want their star players tolead the team.
You know, and you know, andstuff like that.
So what can a parent do thatcan say, you know, that wants
(27:17):
not to challenge the system butto make sure should they take an
extra week?
Or what are your thoughts onyou know the parent wanting to
protect their child from youknow you know another injury.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Protect their child from you know, another injury.
It's challenging right nowbecause a lot of our concussion
tools deal with symptoms thatare, you know, self-reported by
the student.
There's limited objective dataat this time to support that
they're either fully healed ornot fully healed.
It's not like a yes no that wecan tell from a blood test right
now, and so I think parentshave to just have that open
(27:51):
dialogue with their studentathlete and make sure they feel
that they're back to theirnormal before heading back into
play.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Okay, and what are your recommendations on now?
We funded a study that showedthat, by day 35, the potential
for suicidality or suicidalideation greatly increased after
a concussion, which is prettyalarming because, you know,
(28:22):
nobody thinks of concussionsafter two weeks.
Right, kids, back on the field,they're acting normal, you know
whatever, or, you know,abnormal, depending on how crazy
the kid might, you know, be intheir, their, their, in their
path.
Right, you know that's the wayit is.
But, um, how do we, um, youknow, go back and take a look at
you know?
Uh, you know, post concussionsurveys?
(28:44):
Okay, these are not a toolthat's regularly used to monitor
the child for at least 30 daysfor the same things that we
talked about in the baseline.
Do you use post-concussionsurveys, do you recommend them,
or what's your perspective onthose for parents to monitor
their children?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
We don't currently use them.
I think if your child is beingdeemed by a medical professional
, that's the first step andcertainly if the child ever
expresses any kind ofsuicidality, then parents should
be alarmed and take their childto their pediatrician or the
emergency department somethingto get immediate help.
But I can't speak too much topost-concussion surveys.
(29:29):
That's a bit outside my scope.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Okay, Well, I mean so they're available on our
website.
And just so the parents knowout, there is that it is
recommended, 30 days after aconcussion, to monitor your
child for at least that long,and even longer, because these
surveys are very subjectiveseries of questions.
But the bottom line is yourchild just went back to playing
(29:55):
sports and to your.
You know, Ms Schaefer, DrSchaefer, excuse me, you know
when.
What is the?
You know, if the child's brainis not fully healed and they go
back to sports, what are therisks to the child?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
They can certainly have a more potential for a more
severe concussion.
They're more likely to getanother concussion if not fully
healed, and then repetitiveinjuries certainly do add up,
and they may be at risk forlong-term symptoms that we don't
fully understand at this timethat we don't fully understand
at this time.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Wow, and that's a lot for parents to understand.
And that brings us back to theissue of more brain-safe sports.
Are there sports?
As a neurologist, you wouldrecommend the parents for their
children to play above otherswhen it comes to brain health.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I know we're such a sport-crazy country that it's
hard to say, you know, don'tplay football or don't play
soccer.
But I think prioritizinglower-risk sports you know,
cross-country things like thatis certainly something parents
could consider, but I don't wantto make any kind of outright
recommendation.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
I'll make an outright statement, since I'm not a
trained physician at this time.
Well, don't worry about it, butall right.
Well, let me ask you this Doyou think that?
Do you think it's surprisingthat there's no basketball or
baseball brains that have beendiagnosed with CTE at the Boston
University?
Cte brain.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I am a little surprised, as those sports still
have reasonably high concussionrates, particularly basketball
elbows to the heads, knees tothe head.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Right, but certainly football is your dominating
sport, right, but certainlyfootball is you're dominating,
right, but those sports do nothave repetitive head impacts.
They have concussions.
You cannot avoid the concussion, but they don't have RHI.
And so you know, yeah, and Ithink that's something that you
know.
I was just doing some researchthe other day.
(32:07):
I'm like, wow, because wealways have to, you know, put
you know some kind of you know.
We got to put it in layman'sterms Like well, actually, you
know, if you really want to know, you know there's soccer people
in there, there's rugby,there's football, there's hockey
, you know.
But when you come down to brain, safe sports, and there's
there's, you know, it's kind oflogical or correlation, at least
(32:30):
you know to us.
But I didn't want you to put onsports to.
Are you going to let your kidsplay football?
probably not okay, as a mom, I'mjust saying all right, you know
, that's it.
It's just, you know it's.
It's good to know.
If I would have been aseducated as you or as I am right
now, I absolutely would havesaid no and uh, and let's talk
(32:55):
about that.
You know, one of the problemswith our son that I allowed to
happen is that I allowed him toplay back to back concussive
sports.
He was a blindside, uh, uh,offensive, I think it's a tackle
or a guard, and um, and nobodytouched that quarterback when my
son was playing bad, uh God, hewas awesome.
(33:16):
And then he was a wrestling guy, getting ready to be the
wrestling captain wrestlingcaptain on football and so that
was.
You know, we started in July,went all the way through March
and then, of course, you know,we were snowboarders and skiers
and my son refused to takelessons.
So he's out there banging hishead.
What is your, you know, from anRHI perspective perspective?
(33:45):
What is in your, in your mind,as a, you know, future mom or
mom, I don't know your childstatus at this time.
Um, as an educated neurologist,you know what is your advice to
parents?
Because you can now playfootball year round.
Now, right, you can play hockeyaround or, you'd like my son,
you can play a combination ofsports that have we call them
high-risk sports.
You know when is too much toomuch.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
I think parents should go into these collision
sports with eyes wide open aboutthat.
They do carry a risk ofrepetitive head injury and
concussions and make sure thatthey're evaluating those risks
for themselves.
You know when we're startingthese sports younger and younger
(34:30):
you know tackle football ingrade school.
I think it's of utmostimportance that parents really
sit down and consider what therisks are to their child and
think about you know also thebenefits of being involved in
sports there are certainlybenefits to team sports and
weigh those risks for themselves.
But definitely go in eyes wideopen and think about those.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
And so you know to a parent right, you know you're a
neurologist when is their childat six years old?
Right, where is their child'sbrain in terms of development
and what are the risks to thatbrain?
I mean, you know that brain hasbeen ordained by our Lord to
have a natural growth trajectoryover 25 years or pick your
(35:17):
number to get to a maturationstage that's really not supposed
to be shook or, you know,banged around or whatever.
And you can't avoid theoccasional kick on a horse or
falling down in basketball.
Or you know they're kids, right, they're going to have, you
know they're going to hurt theirhead here and there.
But you know one of the reasonsthat we're and I'm not a, I'm
(35:40):
not a neurologist, I'm aneducated man on this issue, but
you're a brain specialist, right, where are their child?
Like when you start eventhinking about contact sports,
or now they got slap leagues andboxing it's like what are we
doing with these kids brains?
I mean, where is their brain atthis juncture?
It's just a grade school andwhat are the risks to the brain
(36:03):
in terms of development, ofparticipation in these sports?
Your opinion I'm not asking foryou know your opinion.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
The brain is still very much actively developing.
It develops well into adulthood, and so I don't think we know
quite yet what the impacts areof you know having a concussive
hit at six versus you know 26.
How does that affect theirlong-term trajectory of brain
health?
I'm not sure we know that rightnow, and so I think that just
(36:34):
goes back to the risks andbenefits that parents need to
consider whenever they'reenrolling their child in any
kind of collision.
Sport is that you have toconsider that as a potential
risk?
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Well, the concussions are one thing, but what about
repetitive head injuries whenyou have sports, like, you know,
football, or a league, like thehockey rugby right now, where
they don't really have too manylimits on, you know, kids, but
you know football is the largestone because you really it's
hard to, you know, unless you doflag football, which is an
awesome option at the age of six, right, but you know, we're
(37:10):
speaking to the parents outthere that are, you know, hell
bent on.
This is the way I've done it,this is the way I'm doing it,
but from a repetitive headinjury perspective, that
continuous, you know, you knowimpact to their, to their brain,
what's, what's your perspectiveon that?
Speaker 2 (37:30):
I think one thing parents can do is just explore
the options out there withdifferent leagues so different
leagues will have differentkinds of rules and seeing what
the policies are in their state.
So some states have differentallowances on how many contact
days a sport can have, how manypractices a sport can have.
(37:51):
Things like that can beeffective.
Lower contact days and lowerpractice times in football have
been shown to reduce headinjuries.
We also see in hockey leaguesleagues that disallow body
checking have lower concussiverates.
So looking for policies likethat and understand how those
(38:13):
influence concussion rates andof course that influences
repetitive head injuries as wellis important for parents to
understand those repetitive headinjuries as well is important
for parents to understand.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
You just brought up an amazing fact, okay, that by
taking contact, lowering contacton practice days, you know, can
reduce the amount of headinjuries.
It also reduces the amount oftotal aggregate exposure to
repetitive head impacts.
So are you seeing that in newsports now?
(38:41):
Because not from a concussionperspective, because it's kind
of inverse you have moreconcussions on game day than
practice days, right, but youhave far more RHI exposure on
you know.
You figure, somebody's footballlike my son's football team
practiced five days a week butthen they had a game day, or at
least four days a week.
You know that's.
That means game days.
(39:07):
You know, 20% of your totalaggregate exposure.
What are you seeing out therein the high school world right
now that might indicate thatwe're taking this seriously?
Or, you know, is there anychange coming when it when it
comes to reducing, reducingexposure in practice, which
would be an amazing change if wecould make that happen.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
There are certainly studies out there that have
shown when schools did reducethe number of contact days that
there were reductions in headinjuries.
And for instance, Illinois justpassed to reduce the contact
days in the summer.
I don't know if that wasrelated to head injuries in
their decision making, but Ithink programs are starting to
(39:47):
reduce those contact days as asafety measure for children.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Well, I wish yeah, I mean it sounds good, I mean, but
we're seeing it, you know,league by league or sport by
sport, no-transcript school withmitigating circumstances that
(40:31):
it might be okay for parents totake a look at this.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
I'm not sure that there's an exact age available
yet.
I think the name of the game isjust prevention at this point,
and so looking for ways to makea sport safer and reduce
potential for impact is probablywhere we're we should focus
right now.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I don't see you are you are age to start concussion
or to start impact.
Yeah, we're, we're, we areadvocating at least to the age
of 14, when the prefrontalcortex starts developing, and
then if we could just take thepractice out of contact or the
contact out of practice, thenthese kids will be a lot better.
(41:15):
You know from an RHIperspective.
You know from an RHIperspective and you've done an
amazing job dodging the manholesin this very, very complicated
discussion, because you know butit is very important that our
parents hear from you, knowtrained professionals, that you
know there is risk.
It should be judged and tojudge, you know they should be
knowledgeable.
(41:36):
Where can parents go?
Of course, you know the bestbook ever written on the issue I
wrote.
It's available for free on ourwebsite.
But where else can parents goto understand the issue of
repetitive head impacts andconcussive trauma to their
children, in order to be moreinformed, because you just can't
(41:58):
make decisions withoutinformation more informed,
because you just can't makedecisions without information.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I think right now it's obviously all our
government websites are a littlebit up in the air, but
certainly looking at what theCDC offers, what NIH and other
institutes offer, is a greatstart.
And then also asking thechild's pediatrician or if they
already see a sports medprofessional or if their school
has an athletic trainer.
Those people are all greatresources on concussion
(42:26):
education and care.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And can you explain the difference to our audience
between you know a primary carephysician, right, and a
concussion specialist?
Because you know, we definitely.
You know we want to make sure,like I didn't even know there
was such thing.
So my son had a concussion.
You know we definitely.
You know we want to make sure,like I didn't even know there
was a such thing.
So my son had a concussion.
You know I've had so many ofthem from playing rugby.
I was like, all right, let's gosee the doctor, and you know
(42:51):
we're going to do what thedoctor says.
You know we're not going to bemessing with this and we did,
but it wasn't enough because ofyou know his lifestyle.
So you know, explain to the youknow the audience, like from a
concussion perspective, whatshould they be looking for?
Because you definitely do notwant to be playing around with
this if your child is has beeninjured, especially in the brain
(43:14):
.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
I would start with that child's pediatrician and
request to potentially see ifthe pediatrician thinks maybe a
pediatric neurologist who wouldbe an expert on brain health,
particularly in children and howtheir brain's developing, or a
sports medicine physician wouldalso be a great person to be
referred to if they think theirchild's having more severe
(43:40):
symptoms or not recovering aswell as they would expect.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Okay, great answer.
Final question All right,you're off the hook because
you've been doing an amazing jobhere.
What is the most surprisingrevelation that you've seen
regarding head trauma in theresearch that you've done?
Is there anything out therethat just stands out that was,
(44:08):
you know, that was not shocking,but it was like surprising that
, hey, I didn't know this right.
And what can you think ofsomething that surprised you in
the findings, or is there morethan one?
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I think one thing I'm really excited about is looking
at where the biomarker researchis going to go.
As I said, we don't have agreat.
There's no test to say, yes,you're fully healed from your
concussion or no, you're not.
A lot of it's very subjectivetesting, and so I think
biomarkers have the potential tobe more informative and provide
objective data that caninfluence someone's trajectory
(44:48):
to recovery, and so that's anarea of research I'm very
excited about right now.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
All right, and as we get ready to close, tell us a
little bit more about DrAnnabelle Schaefer.
What are you doing right now?
What do you plan on doing?
And then, how does our audiencefind you to if they need more
information or want to followyou in the research that you're
performing right now?
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I just graduated medical school at Carl Illinois
College of Medicine and thenthis June I'll start my
residency in neurologicalsurgery at Henry Ford Hospital
in Detroit, Michigan, and ifyou'd like to follow my research
updates, I can be found onLinkedIn as well as Twitter,
where I post upcoming papers andrecently published work.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Well, Dr Schaefer, you have been an amazing source
of information for our audience,and it's not all the time that
we get I think.
I think you're the firstneurologist to come on the show,
so congratulations.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Not a neurologist yet .
All right, I'll be aneurosurgeon eventually, in
seven years.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
All right.
Well, you're the first futureneurosurgeon we've had on the
show, for sure, and.
But you've been a source ofknowledge and our, our audience
depends on qualifiedprofessionals to give them the
advice right, to give them, youknow, some, just some thoughts
on these issues, so that they dotake these contact sports a
little bit, or a lot moreseriously than you know, of
(46:13):
course, I did back in the day,cause they're just not harmless.
I want to thank you so much forthe time that you gave us today
and I wish you all the best onyour journey as you become a
neurosurgeon.
I would like to follow yourresearch.
We invite you to attend oursummit on repetitive brain
trauma in September 3rd and 4thof this year, held in Tampa, and
(46:34):
I want to wish you all the bestas you go forth on your journey
in life, and may God bless you.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Thank you so much, denny.
Oh, and as we close out, denny,always a shout out to my
producer who just graduatedMagna Cum Laude crazy Denny man,
best producer in podcasts inthis country.
As we close, I want to saythank you for another wonderful
episode of Broken Brains,sponsored by Mack Parkman
Foundation.
(47:01):
Please look them up.
They are the national voice inrepetitive brain trauma and the
only voice out there.
Go to their website.
Their free book, broken Brains,is a very informative tool.
They have an app on the Googleand Apple store called Head
Smart.
It's got the book on it.
You can inform your parents.
You can do local searches forconcussion specialists.
(47:22):
Please be informed on thistopic.
Coming up September 3rd and 4this our second International
Summit on Repetitive BrainTrauma.
You are all quarterly invited.
We have some very awesomepoliticians invited, military
commanders as well as some ofthe top-notch researchers in CTE
, neurology, contact sports andother aspects of repetitive
(47:45):
brain trauma to includediagnosis and treatment.
It's going to be a fascinatingconference and we can't wait to
hold it and we'll keep youupdated.
Please go to our website,wwwmpfactorg, to get more
information.
And to all of you, as we closeout please take care of
yourselves, please take care ofthose brains you only got one
(48:06):
and stay informed.
God bless you all.
Take care.
Oh, and please like us, pleasesubscribe or please follow us on
Twitter, facebook, instagram,whatever there is out there.
Let us know we're reaching moreand more people every week
because of amazing guests likeDr Schaefer and really putting
out the information that youneed to know.
Take care y'all.
We'll see you next time onBroken Brains.
(48:27):
You.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.