Sports concussions getting more attention

TORONTO, March 4 (UPI) -- Recent stories of long-term neurological degeneration among athletes have many adults wondering about sports concussions suffered in their youth, doctors say.

One Canadian doctor says the revelations about pro hockey and football players have brought him several e-mails a day from patients concerned about whether head injuries they suffered in the past explain their current neurological difficulties, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported Friday.

"We just don't have the answers for a lot of these people," Dr. Charles Tator says. "And we just don't have effective treatments to restore any lost function or to treat most of the symptoms."

Tator says he believes it will take another five to 10 years to determine how strong the correlation may be between concussions and neurological aftermath.

But some progress is being made, he says.

Researchers now recognize a relationship between repeated concussions and depression, he says, and the depression can be treated with the same drugs that work for non-traumatic depression.

Tator is part of a team at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre in Toronto studying brain degeneration after concussion.

Shannon Bauman, a sports medicine doctor in Barrie, Ontario, said she thinks there is much more awareness today about of the severity of concussions.

In her practice, she says, she sees many athletes from all different sports -- as young as 10 and as old as late 70s and 80s.

Pro athletes, she noted, have a lot of resources for concussions.

"They have people that do neurocognitive testing for concussions at their fingertips. They have a lot of people that follow them through."

Today, "we are also available to those young athletes and non-pro athletes in the community," she said.