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JACKSON, MS (WLBT) – Concussions are the invisible epidemic, according to the national group, the Sarah Jane Brain Project. Representatives of the group met today with health professionals at UMMC about preventing, identifying and treating brain injury.
One major area of concern is contact sports in high schools, where experts say concussion can easily go undiagnosed. Wesley Ward played football at Central Hinds Academy, and suffered a brain injury that could have killed him. “I was playing linebacker in a drill called Oklahoma and I hit the fullback really hard. It caused a blood vessel to burst on this side of my head, which caused a blood clot to form, which caused by brain to swell. On top of that, I kept hitting, which is the first thing I should not have done.”
The topic is interesting to UMMC health experts because according to the CDC, as many as three million new brain injuries a year occur in the pediatric population in the U.S. About 80-thousand are hospitalized and about 11-thousand of those children die.
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