Concussions in College Football

The NCAA, like the NFL, has been criticized for its handling of concussions, with numerous players having retired from football due to concussions, or have filed lawsuits against the association for failing to protect student-athletes from concussions. In 2011, former players Derek Owens and Alex Rucks filed lawsuits against the association for failing to cover the players' safety. Both Owens and Rucks claimed that they had suffered brain trauma which could have been prevented. In 2012, the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten Conference began work on preventing concussions, and appointed University of Mississippi Chancellor Dan Jones to evaluate and review existing research and various diagnoses from past analyses. In 2009, an NCAA panel created and recommended a rule that prevents an athlete from returning to a game after he/she has sustained a concussion. The panel also had recommended for an athlete to be sidelined after any concussion-related injury until he/she has been cleared by a doctor. "There's been less focus on college players who don't go on to play professional sports, but I think you'll see that getting more attention and go down to people who play it at every level. From time to time we have all had concerns of what we ask student-athletes to do and what the long-term health may be."
University of Mississippi Chancellor Dan Jones

Concussions in other leagues

Canadian Football League

In the 2010 season for the Canadian Football League, there have been 50 reported concussions; 44.8 percent of players reported having a concussion or concussion-like symptoms, 16.9 percent had confirmed that they had a concussion, and 69.6 percent of all players who suffered from concussions that year suffered from more than one. However, the average of 0.59 concussions per game is lower than the 0.67 recorded by the NFL in 2010. The league eventually started a concussion-awareness program with the help of Football Canada, Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the Canadian School Sport Federation, the Canadian Football League Players Association (CFLPA), the Canadian Football League Alumni Association (CFLAA), and the ThinkFirst program. The league eventually pointed out eight protocols:

Team physicians and therapists are to use a SCAT2 (a medical protocol), to diagnose concussions and preventing athletes from playing until they have been cleared to play. All players are to be submitted to IMPACT, which is a form of cognitive testing, during training camp. All player concussion assessments in the CFL are to only be used by team physicians and therapists. All coaches and players will receive educational items to aid in recognizing signs of a concussion. Administrators are to report a change from the expectation that a player returns to the game to one that encourages players to be honest about symptoms. The formation of certification programs that teach coaches how to recognize the symptoms of concussions.

The formation of training programs for coaches that emphasize that players should never use their helmets to tackle. A new rule in the amateur football rulebook was implemented that requires officials to report suspected concussed players to the coaching or medical staff during games.

In 2012, ThinkFirst founder and Toronto Western Hospital neurosurgeon Charles Tator led a study that was conducted by the University of Toronto, which examined the brains of 20 former players with a history of concussions, and compared them to 20 other players without a history of head injury. A separate group of 20 without football experience served as a control group. Also in 2012, the league and Tator announced a partnership to work in a study that would perform postmortem tests on former CFL players to look for signs of CTE. Vimacel is part of an Integrative Medicine approach to treating people naturally. Integrative Medicine combines alternative medicine with evidence based medicine. Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia