KCTV 5Specific brain injury often undetected in high school football players

Concussions grab the headlines, but high school football players are more likely to see brain damage from a different type of injury. And this injury, called a sub-threshold event, is potentially more dangerous than a concussion.

"Every play run in football has the potential to cause impact to a brain," said Dr. Joseph Waeckerle, who was the Chiefs team physician for two decades. "The brain is soft tissue. It's very vulnerable tissue."

A 2009 study from Purdue University says more than half of all high school football players receiving a shot to the head will incur brain damage. And most players stay on the field because they don't display any obvious symptoms.

"It's an injury that doesn't manifest itself clinically. The coach wouldn't know, the fellow players wouldn't know, the medical staff wouldn't know, but it's enough of an injury that it causes some trauma to the brain," Waeckerle said.

Waeckerle is working with Rockhurst High School to protect their players from brain trauma, including sub-threshold events. He wants more high schools to develop guidelines to protect students from brain injury.

"We can't pick it up, but we know it's happening. And it's repeated over and over again. And we're trying to figure out if that's going to cause short-term or long-term problems," the physician said. "There is a hint that it causes both."

The Purdue study showed half of the players in the study suffered significant memory loss despite never receiving a concussion.

"They have no symptoms. They don't have a hard time speaking. They don't have a hard time with balance. They don't have a hard time walking," said Tom Talavage, co-founding director of the Purdue MRI facility.

A seemingly harmless hit to the forehead can cause brain damage, Talavage said.

"These short-term changes have the potential to lead to long-term consequences. But ultimately, it all seems to be related to how many blows are they taking and where are they located," Talavage said. "And those are actually two things that can be controlled. So from that perspective, there is at least optimism on our part that we can do something about this."

Limiting the number of times a student athlete gets hit is vital, both Talavage and Waeckerle say.

"For the majority of the players, at least 70 percent of the blows they take to their head occur during practice," Talavage said. "If you go to the NFL for example, contact practices are very rare once you get beyond training camp."

Parents can help reduce the risk of brain trauma to their children by insisting that they get plenty of rest and drink lots of water during the season. Fatigue and dehydration increase the risk of brain injuries, experts say.

Parents should also insist that coaches teach proper blocking and tackling techniques.

Both Talavage and Waeckerle recommend that high schools limit or totally eliminate hitting, particularly hard hits, once the season begins. Coaches and parents should support this, they say.

"When we take all of this into account, we should be more conservative with these athletes than we are even with the NFL," Waeckerle said.

To read tips from the federal government for preventing brain injuries in high school sports, click here.

To read about the Purdue study, click here and here.

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