Leading Southwest Medical Expert Releases TBI Tips for NFL Players

NEW YORK - (BUSINESS WIRE) - As the controversial impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) among NFL players expands, a leading Southwest medical expert has released five top tips every NFL player and football athlete should know.

A neuropsychiatrist specializing in TBI, Dr. David Durham is the Managing Partner and Director of Neurocognitive Regeneration at the Mosaic Neuroscience Group in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with offices in Roswell as well as in New York City. He offers the following:

1. A helmet does not protect the brain from blunt force. It simply reduces the intensity of force that reaches its tissue.

2. One severe traumatic brain injury can greatly improve with rest and rehabilitation. Minor or moderate brain injuries that occur repeatedly, without adequate recovery, will not improve.

3. One closed head injury of moderate severity increases the risk of dementia by almost seven times.

4. Repetitive injury to the brain over a short period of time (e.g. weeks), even if each injury is mild, amplifies trauma to the brain.

5. Assuming number three to be correct, the estimated statistical risk of having dementia by the age of sixty-five after sustaining only a mild (e.g. concussion) brain injury two, three, four...... eight, ten, and even twenty-five times, is "only" increased by an estimated two, six, eight, twenty, thirty eight, and eighty times respectively.

"New NFL players ought to more carefully weigh the risks when they begin their career - which may take a lot of the sparkle from the diamond Superbowl ring," said Dr. Durham. "New players typically sustain several TBIs without realizing it just in the first week of their professional career. Still, they can mitigate their risk of sustaining a more severe brain injury if they learn to recognize early signs of trauma-if only because we have no way, as of yet, to slow the accelerated deterioration of the brain regions injured. Today, once a brain is damaged, its functions remain on a slippery slope for life."

Dr. David Durham has treated thousands of TBI victims, including many military veterans. He is the former director of the Neuroscience Research Institute, a former medical consultant to the Fox Ten O'clock News in Roanoke, Virginia, and documentary filmmaker in Iraq. He currently is Managing partner and Director of Neuropsychiatry and Neurocognitive Regeneration at the Mosaic Neuroscience Group based in Santa Fe New Mexico, with offices in Roswell as well as New York City. Dr. Durham receives no compensation from pharmaceutical companies. He served with the US Army in the early 1990s and played football in college.

Dr. Dave Durham is available for TV, radio and print commentary on the newest treatments in development for TBI and how athletes can recognize early signs of TBI.

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