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Bruce Parkman on Repetitive Brain Trauma, Concussion Warning Signs and Mental Health | Broken Brains · Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey folks, Bruce Parkman with Broken Brains, the official podcast of the Mac Parkman Foundation, where we look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma from two aspects: repetitive head impacts and repetitive blast exposure.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And why this is important is because, man, they are really impacting the mental well-being futures and the mental health of our kids, athletes, and veterans.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the correlation, though, between blast exposure and head impacts and mental health is not taught in any medical nursing or psychological course.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it's so important that this show exists for now until we fix this problem to let you know that there are ways to heal, that there are, there is hope out there.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: But you need to be informed because nobody's going to tell you.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to go figure this out for yourself.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we're here to help you at the Mac Parkman Foundation.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So every now and then the producer will send us a list of questions coming in from the audience.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I really appreciate them, by the way.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: We all do at the Mac Parkman Foundation, and we look forward to answering them.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to take a little bit of time to go through some questions.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they're a mix of, you know, RHI, you know, RBE and treatment, all this all mixed up, which makes it kind of fun.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so we are, we need to we need to jump back and forth between the two issues because they're they're both horrible tragedies that need to be fixed anyways.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Our first question is from Tom in Arizona.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was in the military for 20 years and spent a lot of time around weapons breaching and explosions.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Should veterans with that kind of history get their brains evaluated even if they feel fired?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Tom, yes, because you're not fine.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like whether it's Tom Brady, another Tom, or anybody that says, I feel great.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you have been exposed to extensive amounts of explosive blast, you need to get checked, at least to make sure that you are fine.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that you're not, but the probability of you probably having some issues related to it is there.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying it's very high.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: The other part of this is what is fine.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: You need to remember that military personnel, whether they're special operations or conventional military forces, are at a higher baseline than your average civilian.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a fact.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: When you join the military, you put on that uniform, you're not only like the 1%, maybe it's 2% of people that have actually served this beautiful nation, you're also you just elevated your status, man.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially if you've been around these things, weapons breaching explosions, you're not pretty much kind of a badass.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: That takes a toll.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it also deals, you know, we we learn to compartmentalize and we look, we learn to cope with these things, okay?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes our coping mechanisms become what fine is.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I feel fine.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm drinking just a six-pack a night.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I feel fine.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I only get at my I only get mad at my wife every now and then or my kids.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I feel fine.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um probably shouldn't be jumping out of planes without a reserve or you know, doing other risk-taking activity.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So to to to my my point is, Mr.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Tom, go just at least get checked out.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that you start evaluating fine, you know, the way a more of a normal person might, instead of one of us, you know, veterans, an ex-military guy, and make sure that that fine is good.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and take care of yourself.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, go get checked out.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are fine, man, I am so thankful because you are truly blessed and keep going.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if you aren't, then make sure that whatever they do find, you take care of, man.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Take care of yourself.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of ways out there to take care of ourselves.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Therapy's part of it.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're currently on, you know, pharmaceutical drugs, we can work them off, work them off that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of ways to heal the brain and treat that.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, you know, best of luck to you, Tom, and hope that works out.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Jennifer in Georgia, Georgia.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: What are the warning signs after a concussion?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: That means somebody should go immediately to the emergency room.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: When you have a concussion, most people will say, and I probably do agree with this, if there's been a loss of consciousness of any period, like your lights just back on.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like one second, go to the hospital.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is a serious, serious concussion.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had them, too many of them.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I never went to the hospital.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to go to the hospital in a big way a couple years ago.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to make sure that when you have a cushion, particularly with a child, that if there's any loss of consciousness, man, you're in an ambulance or you get driven right to the right to the hospital and you get checked out because that's not good at all.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Means that you had a very, very serious hit.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: The other part of this is if you are vomiting and dizzy and you're slurring your words and you've got other significant, significant issues after getting hit in the head.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: These are all indicators that, again, you had a serious concussion, not serious enough to cause loss of consciousness, but you need to get evaluated.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I would also say that look, if it's a child and they said that they got their bell rung and they they got dizzy, if it's a child, take them anyways, man.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the important thing to remember about this is that what you do after concussion in terms of medical evaluation is one thing.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: What you deal with what you do with after concussion in terms of what we call uh you know post-concussive syndrome is something else that you really need to pay attention to starting right now.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: If your child has had a concussion, or anybody, anybody's had a concussion, that healing period doesn't end because you just walked out of the ER.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're not going to give you any medical magical drugs or anything that's going to heal that brain.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to go in the ER and you're going to come out and you're still going to have a concussion.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do after that?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if most doctors are normal doctors, which unfortunately they are when it comes to concussions, they'll say two weeks, dark room, no school, no this, right, okay, right.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wrong.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of it.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: We are now finding out that light activity after a concussion actually really helps.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to make sure after concussion that you look at what's called PCS checklist.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a post-concussive survey syndrome survey.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's got 13 questions on it, I think, 13 to 14.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you need to be asking yourself or these kids or your partner this every day.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you still have headaches?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you still have dizziness?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because after two weeks, or even at the end of two weeks, we start thinking that these headaches and these this dizziness and these things are something else.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, he drank too much water.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's what our big problem was for our son.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is we did not understand when he said he had a headache.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was right after football.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, ah, you're not drinking enough water, right?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because we didn't have these big concussions.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: He had three of them that we were concerned about, but they were way far apart.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they did all the protocols.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: We were like, all right, now, now you do that post-concussion survey and you take your child to a concussion specialist.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is the other most important part about this, is that there are people out there I didn't know about.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like, we'll take them to the doctor, you know, two weeks, okay.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: After that, you know, they're clear, right?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we didn't ask the questions though, because we didn't know, you know, it was like two weeks.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: All right, he's good to go.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'd been through so many concussions, it was stupid.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't take them seriously because I was fine, to Tom's point.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't fine.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was I was not a very fine, a normal person at all.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: But so you want to take your kid to a concussion specialist, and that is absolutely an imperative because they understand concussions, and they're going to ask those hard questions.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, we'll talk about, you know, with your child, is guess it might be there might be time to stop playing contact sports because you don't need this.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks a lot, Jennifer.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate that question.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll do one more.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Eric from Washington kind of talks about a little bit after Jenna.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, so Eric asked, You've talked about repetitive brain trauma.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a certain number of concussions where you should seriously consider stop playing contact sports?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I would say the number to me always has been three, but not over these are like three.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is when that's when I wanted to stop my boy, because that's what I heard.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is he never had another one after that.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: But there was the neuroinflammation and the continued playing that continued to hurt his brain.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: There is no number of concussions that indicate that you should stop playing contact sports.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: The issue is how long have you been playing contact sports where these concussions can exacerbate the damage that's already been done to the brain.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have had a concussion play uh and you're playing contact sports, not good.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's where your post-concussive survey that we just talked about comes into place.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Monitor that child.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: A concussion happens, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you're playing contact sports and that kid, you know, now if he's been playing for a long time, then we got other problems to talk about from an RHI and brain damage perspective.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if he's just getting into it and he gets hit, all right, or she, you know, takes a fly and cheerleader and smacks her head.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you got to make sure that that child's brain is healed and you've got to stand up for that.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: That means you're going to the coach and you say, until this doctor says that my son is okay, he's not playing sports.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or my daughter, they're not playing contact sports or any sport.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then you got to go to your child who this is the harder conversation because they identify with these sports.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they're very good at them.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's who they are, it's what they've known about.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be, we might have to take a look at this.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But if you do that message based on love, and you take my free book that I got online and you use that, then you can have a conversation about how important it is for your child because they're not going to be making millions of dollars playing contact sports.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: But they're going to make a hell of a life as a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer, a psychiatrist, canine, veterinarian, whatever they decide to be.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not going to be suffering.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it comes down to.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So what I would tell you, Eric, is one.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not one and done.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: One and heal.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: But man, if you want to push it three, you know, after that, they're done.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: If I would have pulled my child at three, he'd probably still be alive.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because he had another three years ago.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I did.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I finally got the emails, I challenged the coach.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm done.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm done.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm done.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, well, we don't have a number.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they told me.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have a number.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: We have no idea how many concussions there are.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we went through the protocols and he continued to play.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And because he never had another one that we knew about, you know, he ended up getting worse until he couldn't be here no more.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, Eric, when it comes down to it, I want you to take a look at the the potential outcome, the tragic outcome, which is always what I dealt with and am dealing with to this day.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: How many concussions is that worth?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So look, we um, and I will do one more.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: What the heck?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Nicole from Pennsylvania.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: What's the connection between TBI or repetitive brain trauma and depression, anxiety, anger, or emotional problem?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: The primary problem that we have with these contact sports is that most of the damage is taken from the prefrontal cortex, right here.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right here.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the frontal lobe.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's where it's at, right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's where your head soccer balls.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's you lead with your head in football if you're a ding don.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know how to tackle like a regular guy.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hockey, you know, you're facing straight, you know, they take a little bit.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have rotational hits from the side that spin the head around.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: But most of the damage is done right here.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: What's the problem?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: This prefrontal cortex here is the most amazing part of our brain, I think.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the CEO, chief executive officer of the body.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that we do from a brain perspective, a functional perspective, a social perspective, you know, planning, and all the everything done is all done right here.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Prefrontal cortex.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is also where a lot of the emotions that you mentioned, anxiety, rage, anger, also emanate when the pre cor the prefrontal cortex is damaged.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: It controls our emotional regulation.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the problem with this part of the brain, number one is this position.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's right here.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, right here.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: How about how much how how how much space do you think is between this?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I got a thick head, ask my wife, and your brain, right?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: An inch?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Less?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: That impact goes right into it.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's no cushion here, man.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's not, even if you put a cushion, energy is what's making that brain move.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can't stop the energy.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the problem that we have is not only the position, but the fact that the prefrontal cortex doesn't myelinate until you're 14.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: High school.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: That means that your prefrontal cortex, the most important part of your brain when you are an adult, is unprotected even more from the impacts associated with contact flowing.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just think about that.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Your child's brain, my son's brain in the age of six, because continuously, you know, being exposed to head impacts from football and hockey and soccer and all the sports.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And because the brain's unmyelinated, those neurons are even more subject, they're more subject to damage because they have no protection.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: The signals get crossed easier, leading to mental illness.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: All that damage, you know, synaptic death when the neurons die, you know, sharing, the damage that's done to the axons and the dendrites and all the structures that come off the neurons and connect them.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: When those are damaged, then you got a damaged child.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Your prefrontal cortex is the motherboard.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a computer nut, I hire developers for your body.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when you drop a computer and you bust up the motherboard?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: You got a busted computer.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: You bust your child's brain with these contact sports while it's being developed, and you got a busted child.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is when they're busted, everybody knows they're broke, but nobody knows what's broken.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: They just see the mental illness, the symptoms.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh, I got touched as a child.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: There must be some you know acute childhood experience, ace.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the new buzzword.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, there must be all this stuff.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: But what about the broken brain?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm dealing with a kid right now who was on the men's junior lacrosse team by the age of 14.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Started playing at four.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: For the last seven years, that young man has been medicalized, institutionalized, hospitalized under every form of therapy.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: No one has ever asked him if he played contact sports.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: So guess what never got treated?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: His brain.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Guess what never else got treated?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: His mental illness.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: You start healing these brains, you start healing mental illness.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's time that we started owning that and doing better.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, Nicole, thank you so much for the questions.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: To our listeners, thank you so much.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the brand of questions, man.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're you're you're hearing this, you're seeing this, you can't unsee it after it's done.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: But there is an uh a pragmatic approach to how we move forward, and I'll explain to that in another shorty.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: We can talk about how do we do that?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do that?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: How do we have our contact sports, which we love?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, football is a religion, and we can.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we not have this epidemic of mental health?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: How do we not have this just horrible, tragic outcome of dead kids and dead veterans and all that?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do we fix this?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: It can be fixed.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll talk to you about that another time.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Till then, Bruce Parkman, your host of Broken Brains, the official podcast of the Mac Parkman Foundation.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like us, love us, don't leave us.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: You see us on Apple, Spotify, man, push us out over the place.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: We are one of the fastest growing uh uh podcasts on brain health right now because this issue here impacts millions and millions of Americans, and people are just starting to hear about it because you've listened to us, and we really appreciate it.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget the free book.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: We just updated the whole thing.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's on our website.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Go grab it.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming out in Spanish and audiobook for all you audio files.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take care of you on that one there.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: We hear you, we listen all the time.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um, don't forget about our app on the aheadsmart on the app store.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening, and I so appreciate you all.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, you're children, they only have one melon.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Take care of that thing.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Man, it bruises easily, and we love them so much.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you on your journey.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Talk to you.
• 18:14
  unknown: Bye bye.