Trying to keep up with all the concussion news is tough, even harder across the Pacific in Australia. I choose that particular spot because of the collision sports of rugby and Aussie Rules Football. In my most recent search of concussion Down Under I tripped across an article that was highlighting a current concussion issue with a player, Kade Simpson – by the way the official injury listed is jaw, but this article reports a concussion, obviously an inherent sporting issue to not report. Heck even the AFL is asking one of its teams to identify an injury that reportedly, denied by team, resulted in loss of consciousness; team merely stated he had blurred vision after a hard head knock (really?????)
Regardless I found this very interesting comment in the article;
Melbourne’s Daniel Bell and Western Bulldog Matthew Robbins have highlighted their own issues with concussion, while Dean Kemp and Chad Rintoul are among players who have won injury compensation.
It appears as though the concussion issue is hampering a lot of people who choose to take the risks in collision sports. I will see if I can dig up more.
The article mentions that there will be the 4th International Conference in Zürich later this year, can anyone get me an invite to this? I will gladly report back for all interested.
Also in the article from the Great Lakes Advocate (written by an unidentified player agent) was the overview of the injury; including sandbagging on the pretest, refreshing for the papers to cover this in Australia;
Concussion is a relatively common injury in football. AFL reports reveal there are six or seven concussions per team, per season.
It is common for a player to play injured, and risk further injury, in order to win games of football. It is also common for a player who is out of contract or on an incentive-based contract to play hurt in order to have his career extended. Often, an agent will discuss this process with his player to work out what is the best strategy regarding his contract.
However, concussion is a very different proposition to other injuries. These days, at least, this is a non-negotiable.
There are stories that players purposely perform badly on the pre-season concussion test in order to bluff doctors if they do get concussed during a game and have to perform the same test. This may have been the case once but I hope it is not now.
The Concussion Blog 