Scientists are still in the early stages of learning the long term effects of multiple concussions.
Retired athletes who received multiple concussions have reported increased memory loss, depression, irritability and impulsivity and, later in life. During autopsies, scientists have found signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, in the brains of athletes with multiple serious concussions.
A concussion is defined as a mild traumatic brain injury, which causes a temporary disruption in brain activity. In a concussion, whether caused by impact, whiplash or rotational force, the brain is jostled around inside the skull.
The end result is the “delicate neural pathways in the brain can become damaged, causing neurological disturbances,” the Sports Concussion Institute website states.
Rockland resident Geary Smith, a veteran Lincoln County stage actor, knows full well the devastating long term affects of multiple concussions. Smith has had five serious concussions during which he was knocked unconscious.
The first two came while he was serving in the Air Force, the fourth when he fell off a roof while working construction and the fifth when he was using pulleys to move a beam into place in his barn and the beam slipped and hit his head.
At the age of 52, Smith was working construction jobs and in good shape, until he awoke Father’s Day morning and could not walk.
“It all happened in one night,” Smith’s wife Kim Fletcher said. “He woke up in the middle of the night with a horrible dizzy sensation.”
Now eight years later, Fletcher still vividly remembers Smith hollering down to her that he could not walk. He was rushed to the emergency room, with what Fletcher thought was a stroke.
After much testing, doctors came to the conclusion Smith’s problems were associated to his multiple concussions. Smith was diagnosed with rotary nystagmus, a condition where the eyes literally move in small circles; and with ataxia, which Wikipedia defines as a “neurological sign consisting of lack of voluntary coordination of muscle movements.”
Smith also suffered from vertigo, which became particularly bad while he was riding in a car. “His depth perception was all screwed up. He would see things and believe they were coming at him. He would read to me in the car and that was the only way he could ride through traffic. He had terrible migraines,” Fletcher said.
Now eight years later, things are slowly improving for Smith. “The brain has the ability to rewire itself. There has been a big improvement in his vertigo, but it has destroyed the nerves in one of his ears. He has Meniere’s Disease in one ear,” Fletcher said.
“The ataxia he will always have. He cannot walk without a cane,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher said her husband never rested after having a concussion. “He is a typical man; two or three days later he was back out there working again. What happens when the brain is injured and not allowed to heal can plaque you, and you may not show neurological problems for 20 to 30 years.”
