What Goes Around: Life after Football
“A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it, is committing another mistake.”
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While the NFL and the NFLPA continue to roll out one press release after another about the wonderful progress they’re making for today’s players on brain concussions, our focus has always remained focused on disability and pension benefits for its veteran players. Without the growing voices of the veterans to emphasize the long-term damages of life after football, we doubt if much of the progress we’ve seen today would even be happening. With help from our friends in the media and in Congress, our hope is to not only educate the fans and the general public about the long term effects of brain concussions but to also promote and advance new research into possible treatments for the problem. Like all things in life, everything is related directly or indirectly: Anything that benefits the retired players will surely help the active players, perhaps even on the field immediately after an injury. It would seem as though the NFL is slowly coming out of its decades of denial in finally acknowledging that concussions are bad for you. Now we have to get them to not only go back and pay those men who have long suffered in silence from being ignored by their employers but to look forward to ways of treating their suffering. And in doing so, we’ll not only be helping those hurt from the past but also those playing today and into the future.
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By openly studying and helping the veterans of the game, the direct and indirect benefits to all athletes as well as to the public at large far outweigh the flawed logic of denial. Retired players have benefited from the generosity of Dr. Daniel Amen and his clinical studies on the long-term aftereffects of concussions. And Dr. Ken Stoller has recently been treating some retired players with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) with promising results. We just received a detailed piece from Dr. Stoller on how the process works and his hands-on treatment with George Visger and Wayne Hawkins. Perhaps it’s only wishful thinking to hope that the NFL and the NFLPA will work together to provide these latest treatments for both its injured players on the field and off the field. We envision mandatory brain scans when new players enter and leave the game, as well as scans for all retired players. We also believe that HBOT may well be standard equipment in locker rooms in the future and retired players should all have direct access to such treatments as well.
