Chocolate Milk to Help Concussions?
A Maryland school official intends to order $25,000 worth of chocolate milk to help student athletes recover from concussions.
The Washington County superintendent acknowledged that scientists may believe he is “[expletive deleted] nuts” to think that chocolate milk can limit brain damage, but he says the move is supported by an unpublished study from the University of Maryland. That study concluded that athletes who drank a specific brand of chocolate milk after games and practices had higher scores on post-concussion cognitive tests that athletes who did not drink it. The product manufacturer stated that the milk has enhanced levels of protein, electrolytes, and other brain-friendly ingredients.
When asked to comment, a neuropsychologist at the Sports Concussion Center of New Jersey speculated that the correlation is simply due to the fact that “regular hydration and nutrition for athletes is important for brain health and neuroprotection.”
Traumatic Brain Injuries
Every year, an estimated 1.7 million Americans sustain serious head injuries, and around 80 percent of these victims are rushed to the emergency room. These injuries vary greatly in severity, but they all have one thing in common: the damage is always irreversible, because dead brain cells simply do not regenerate. But a measure of recovery is often possible through extensive physical therapy, because nearby regions of the brain can be trained to adopt the lost functions.
Some common traumatic brain injury, or TBI, symptoms include:
- Personality Changes: Moodiness is a common reaction to shock, but if the mood swings linger, there is often a much more serious problem.
- Forgetfulness: In extreme cases, a victim may exhibit dementia-like symptoms that make it very difficult to resume normal activities.
- Coma: Sometimes a coma means complete loss of consciousness; other times, the victim is awake but disoriented. As a rule of thumb, the longer this period lasts, the worse the damage becomes.
Damages in a TBI case include compensation for both economic and non-economic losses. The amount of recovery is often substantial, due to the staggering costs associated with TBIs.
A brain injury is often a life-altering event. For a free consultation with an experienced New Braunfels personal injury attorney, contact our office. We do not charge upfront legal fees in a TBI case.
Sources:
http://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/pdf/BlueBook_factsheet-a.pdf
