Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
How a High School Soccer Game Changed a Life: Jami Uretsky’s Concussion Journey
In this heartfelt episode of Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman, host Bruce Parkman is joined by Jami Uretsky, a dedicated advocate for concussion awareness and education. Jami opens up about her personal journey as a mother navigating the aftermath of her daughter’s life-altering concussion sustained during a high school soccer game. The conversation dives deep into the complexities of concussion treatment, the gaps in parental and athlete education, and the challenges within the medical community when it comes to addressing brain health. Jami highlights the critical need for awareness about the risks of contact sports, the importance of proactive parental involvement, and the power of community support in managing recovery.This episode is a must-listen for parents, athletes, and educators striving to understand the long-term impacts of brain trauma and how to advocate for safer practices in youth sports.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Repetitive Brain Trauma
06:24 Understanding Concussions: A Personal Story
12:19 Exploring Treatment Options
20:10 Current State of Concussion Awareness
26:43 The Importance of Education and Awareness
34:18 Advice for Parents on Contact Sports
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LinkedIn: Jami (Stelman) Uretsky
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiuretsky/
Website: concussionmom.com
X: @ConcussionMom
Facebook: Concussion Mom
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064936110206
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Hey folks, bruce Parkman here. Welcome to another episode of Broken Brain, sponsored by the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we focus on the issue of repetitive brain trauma whether it's repetitive head impacts from contact sports or repetitive blast exposure for our military veterans, and how these injuries are affecting the mental health of a huge segment of our population that we are not really educated on. So we go out there and we find the leaders, researchers, the leading authors, the leading scientists and parents and victims and professionals, players, everywhere we can find, to bring you the latest perspectives on repetitive brain trauma and how we can heal it, because you are going to be the advocate for this, for the ones that you love. Today we have an amazing podcast, somebody that actually, I've found out I've known for quite a while. It was Jamie Urensky out of Boston, massachusetts, and she started the Concussion Mom.
Speaker 1:If you've ever paid it, you need to pay attention to the Concussion Mom, because they are a leading advocate for changes in education awareness when it comes to concussions. But this got started when her daughter suffered a life-changing concussion while playing a high school soccer game in 2011. Changing concussion while playing a high school soccer game in 2011. And so she started her own social media operation to bring awareness about this, called Concussion Mom. She's a certified brain fitness coach which I didn't even know existed, so I'd love some more information on that, because we definitely need more brain fitness coaches in this world. And she is an active activist and I can attest to this when it comes to promoting concussion education and awareness, because there's not enough of this out there.
Speaker 1:She wrote a chapter for the bestselling book Concussed Sports Related Head Injuries Prevention, coping and Real Stories, as well as numerous print articles and blog postings. She's been in a professional video for Blower Hockey and then she as well as the documentary Overcoming TBI, which features at the International Brain Injury Conference in New Orleans, and she's obviously a frequent guest on podcasts, radio shows and she does a ton of education, awareness and the issues of concussions which we need to talk more about, especially when it's caused by repetitive impact. So, jamie, thank you so much for coming on the show. So tell us, how did you get here? I mean, what got you? I mean, obviously it sounds like your daughter, thank God, I mean she's okay, but it sounds like you got her to do through this, the way that we all get into this from some near tragic experience.
Speaker 2:That is correct. She was playing in a high school soccer game. She had actually hurt her leg so she wasn't supposed to play. And since I wasn't there, she talked the coach into letting her play and I got a call on my way there. I was going to the game but I didn't have to be there right when it started because she wasn't supposed to play. So I got a call when I was on my way from one of her friends saying she had gotten hurt. She was okay sitting on the bench. He hurt her head but she was fine. But they just wanted to let me know. So I got there and she was sitting on the bench. She was a little dazed, wasn't terrible.
Speaker 2:They did diagnose her with a concussion on the field. We had a very good trainer at our high school and he suggested that I take her to the hospital. And my husband was away that weekend and I was trying to decide do I, do I take her to the hospital? She didn't seem that bad and finally I said you know, I think I just need to do this. So I took her to the emergency room. It was a head injury. So they took her right away and they diagnosed her with a concussion and told me to see my primary care physician. This was a Thursday to see my primary care physician as soon as possible her pediatrician at the time because she was 15. Pediatrician at the time because she was 15. So she is a very, very competitive person. So she was not interested in staying home from school the next day. This was just not going to be affecting her life.
Speaker 2:So as the night wore on, she got worse and worse. I said I think you should send an email to your teachers, let them know that you might not be at school tomorrow. Oh, no, no, no, I'm going to go to school. I said okay, but you know, let's just let them know. Well, we turn on the computer and she couldn't really see it. She couldn't. She started to not make sense. Everything was blurry. So I wrote the email for her.
Speaker 2:Still, you know, I really didn't know what was going to be in store for me. If you do not live this, I don't think you can fully understand how invasive it is in your life. I had taken a concussion training thing that all the parents had to take. We had to sign our name that we took it. But I didn't even pay that much attention to it because I figured it's not going to happen to me. Anyway, she couldn't go to school the next day. I called the pediatrician. We went to see her. She was actually extremely well-educated in concussions, which back in 2011,. That was not always the case.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So we got there, they had the room all darkened for her and she was really pretty bad by this point. No, sunlight couldn't focus, really bad headaches, just really wasn't herself. She's a very vivacious, full of personality type of a person. Her personality was completely flat, it was just nothing. She had no short-term memory. The trip to the doctor we go it's like a lot of back roads, very bumpy, and every bump really bothered her. So the ride itself was difficult. So the ride itself was difficult. And then we got there and she had to fill out a sheet with all the symptoms and you know, the doctor said she's got a concussion, she can't go to school next week and I want to see her back in a week.
Speaker 1:So that went on for probably two months. Wow, yeah, and that's you know. And when you talk about education and concussions back in 2011, a concussion was a headache, right, and you know, in our kids, you know, I think back to when my son got his first concussion. I was on a business trip in Australia and I came home a week later and, you know, everything seemed fine. Of course I've had concussions, so you weren't even looking for changes. So thank goodness that your daughter I mean, you know, unfortunately displayed some mechanism because, given her competitive nature, she probably would have just kept going now.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, after these two months it was very difficult for her to be kept down. However, there was no choice. She had no short-term memory. Friends would come over to visit. She would have no idea that they had come to visit. She couldn't remember her way around our house. She wanted to drink a water. She couldn't remember where the cups were. I had to have the shades drawn at all times. I mean, it was very, very severe. So we were then sent to a concussion specialist, dr Cantu, and he became her primary doctor. For this. She has actually never been formally released from his care to this day.
Speaker 1:So that was- Cantu's one of the best out there when it comes to head injuries.
Speaker 2:So that was one of the best out there when it comes to head injuries, absolutely. But you know that took us down a whole new road. I was. My own personal journey was week to week. Ok, next week she'll be able to do this. Next week she'll be able to do this. All her friends are getting their licenses. When it's time for her to get a license, she'll be fine by then. These milestones were never met, and when you're a 15-year-old girl, that is tough. No social life, nothing Really difficult.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the injury a little bit, because a lot of people assume that soccer is not a contact sport. Yet you have heading the ball, you have midair collisions, you have collisions on the ground and while it's not football or hockey, when you start talking about heading the ball and we have we've had some tragedies where young men and women like to practice heading the ball and have absolutely gave themselves brain damage and mental illness and unfortunately are no longer here. So how did you? You know? So, for the benefit of our audience, to understand that there's a reason why we're saying wait before we start banging the head on. You know, heading soccer balls you can't. You really take away the accidents right. The actions happen. So how did she get hurt on the field?
Speaker 2:She was running down the field. She was a defender and the offensive person from the other team was running behind her and tripped her and she was running very fast and she went up in the air up, fell straight down and right.
Speaker 1:Here is where she was On her forehead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then she snapped her neck.
Speaker 1:And those are hard fields, especially if they're not grass and dirt like the old days either.
Speaker 2:Right Yep. Wow and she snapped her neck. She went straight up in the air, fell right back down again same place and snapped her neck again.
Speaker 1:Bang. Yeah, and that's what's so important to our parents that we try to and we'll talk about. The primary points of where you're at is that you have to be on the lookout. Thank God you had a doctor that wanted to back, or that the symptoms were severe enough, because most concussions the kids they seem all right two or three days later, even the next day, but they're not and we now know that this is a brain injury and it's very, very serious. So how long did it take for you to get your daughter back?
Speaker 2:probably, maybe six years six years, wow.
Speaker 1:As a parent too, she's not a hundred percent right now.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure she ever will be, um, but yeah, it took a very long time.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean I'm, I'm, I'm so sorry to share that and obviously, you know, during this journey you must have. You know, you became a doctor, right? I mean, basically you're now a concussion doctor because even though you're under Dr Cantu's care, I mean, he's one of the best you know. Nobody looks out for a kid like Mama Bear. So what did you do to educate yourself in order to provide your daughter the best possible care that she could get?
Speaker 2:Well, she needed round-the-clock care, so I had to stop working and I stayed home with her. She didn't go to school for months and months almost a year actually.
Speaker 1:No kidding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when she went back she only went a couple hours. She went to private school. We were very lucky that there were certain protocols that could be implemented for her, but she didn't fully go back to school for a year. So I was home with her house for a while because she couldn't do anything. She would tell me that when she would walk, the impact of her foot on the ground went right up into her head things you would never think of. So she slept a lot, and so while she slept I researched and I found that taking care of these head injuries is not a linear thing.
Speaker 2:There are so many different components to it, and one of hers was whiplash. And then with these you sort of have to treat them symptom by symptom, as opposed to a broken bone. You know you do what you do, but these you have to treat by symptom. So it's hit or miss what works. So you have to try certain things, give them a little time, see if they work. Then you move on to the next when that one stops working. It took a long, long time. We did years of this.
Speaker 1:Did they use any like the treatment techniques on your daughter? What were I mean? What were some of the techniques that they that she passed through in order to improve her brain health, in order to, you know, stimulate growth and prove her memory, and and, and, and and, things like that?
Speaker 2:One of the things that we started at home was a very, very clean diet, which did help. Some People think when you go to a chiropractor they just adjust you and crack you. There are so many different types of chiropractors that have very, very different specialties, so we went to one that does just upper cervical procedures. He would measure her neck, the angle, the x-rays, and then it almost looked like a big protractor to me. Do you remember protractors from?
Speaker 1:school. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it would be a very, very precise little push on her neck and that was it. That was all he did and it helped for a while. We went to a chiropractor who did muscle memory kinesiology. We went to regular standard chiropractors but they did, I think, more harm than good with the adjustments. We went to physical therapy. We went to an herbalist. We actually lived in a town, a Marblehead Mass at the time, and there was a world-famous herbalist who was in our town and we went to her and she was very helpful. But I would say the most helpful thing that we did was something called functional neurology. Have you heard of that?
Speaker 1:No, ma'am, I'm learning every day.
Speaker 2:Okay. So they're chiropractors and they have very advanced training in neurology and they go to a place in Florida, actually the Carrick Center. Dr Ted Carrick is the father of functional neurology, he's a Harvard grad and they do all kinds of brain-eye coordination, balance, um, things you could never imagine. She had all kinds of work that she had to do at home. You know two, sometimes two hours a day of of rehab that she would have to do, sometimes things as simple as like her first, her first assignment, I'll call it, was they gave her a post-it note with a dot on it and she had a certain pattern that she had to follow that dot a certain number of times every day and it actually helped. It's something as simple as that. And then from there they build on that to get her better.
Speaker 2:And I actually took her there in May of her senior year of high school so this was three years later because she was going to college and I was thinking to myself I don't know how she's going to go to college. You know, she got in, she wanted to go, but I just did not know how she was going to live away. So I said I have one more chance. I had three months with her to get her back and I took her to this functional neurologist and she went.
Speaker 1:Wow. So, like during this journey too, how was your experience with insurance with some of these modalities? Was it covered? Was it out of pocket? Because we're finding out that man a lot of these things that can help the brain, you know insurance won't cover you unless it's drugs, therapy.
Speaker 2:That is correct. It was all out of pocket.
Speaker 1:Wow. So the thing? And who directed you to? Did you find out this on your own? Or did Dr Cantu or some other folks say, hey, try all this. And I mean here you are obviously grieving, you know, for somebody that you love? That's not, you know, that's been harmed and you're doing everything you can to improve their life, because they've got a whole life to live. And so did you find these treatments on your own, Um, or were you assisted, guided in any way? Cause I mean, I never heard of Mr Carrot, but I'll be looking him up and inviting him on the show, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:I did it all on my own. That was. This is what I did while she slept. I had no choice. She was laying in bed and couldn't move, couldn't see, because her pupils were so large. Her pupils were so big for so long. I mean, it was probably maybe three years ago that they seemed to be okay. So this has been a very long, long time.
Speaker 1:Wow, and it's still ongoing and that's why you know to our audience. You know, educating yourself we come across this all the time. It's like I had to educate myself on the issue of the predative head impacts. There's no information on it. You know, here we talk about a TBI that's impacted this young lady, for I mean all this time. So, all right, here you are. You know you're researching your daughter's healing not as fast as you want to go and you decide to do something about it and you became concussion mom like superhero, all right. So how did that tell me about that? How did that come about?
Speaker 2:So I did have a lot of people help me along the way because, as I did my research. I called everybody that I could find that she did help me. Um, so I decided it was a lot of work that just had to be done because she was not going to get better without this. So I decided I would do this pay it forward because I wanted people to have a place to go for resources that I have already tried and my experience with them. So that's why I did it.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what did you do? I mean you have a website. I mean, obviously you've been out there quite a bit talking, know, talking and speaking, and when did this all get? When did all? When did this all get started?
Speaker 2:January of 2012.
Speaker 1:So you've been a concussion mom for that long, huh.
Speaker 2:Yes. Um yep, so I did um social media. I had a blog, I have my website, I did a podcast for quite a while, a radio show, just anything I could think of to get out there and help. I've gone and spoken at businesses and schools.
Speaker 1:Good on you. Yeah, I need your agent. That's an amazing journey and, given what you've been through and I think that's I mean that's so amazing. So there's the book that you got involved with. How did you? How did you get involved with that? How did they reach out to you? Were you a co author?
Speaker 2:on that. So it was written by Kerry, mostly by Kerry Goulet and Keith Primo, who used to play for the Philadelphia Flyers.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So during my research, one of the places that I found that was helpful to me is something called Stop Concussions, and they founded Stop Concussions and Kerry has been very helpful to me all these years and they were writing this book and they asked both Madeline and I to write a chapter for the book. So she wrote one about returning to school and I wrote one about what it's like to be the parent of a child going through this.
Speaker 1:Wow. I mean, you know, you look at, we come across so many organizations that came out of tragedy right, and here we are. Here you are, you know 2024, right, 13 years or so after this incident. Are you satisfied where we're at when it comes to concussions right now and diagnosis and treatment? I mean, obviously you had a lot to learn. Where do you feel we are right now medically, in our awareness and our ability to treat these injuries?
Speaker 2:I think we are really headed down the right path when I started this. As you know, dr Cantu has a concussion clinic.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, didn't even have that back then.
Speaker 2:So there have been leaps and bounds in this. My problem with all of it is there is no cure. So you still do have to treat those symptoms symptom by symptom. I'm not sure how to get to the point where it's somewhat similar for everybody, because it's very different for everybody. Everybody's brain injury is so different that there isn't one way to address it. And I still do a lot of counseling with parents and kids who get these concussions and they'll tell and you know they'll tell me what's wrong. They'll tell me their symptoms and then I try to point them in the right direction, but it's always different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's it, it definitely is. I mean the the we have, you know it's not like a broken leg, right, there's only basically a couple of ways to treat a broken brain. You deal with a brain and you got all the other factors of diet, you know, extensive exposure, and so, yeah, I mean we do need a lot more focus on this and yet we've studied it to death. I mean we've got so many concussion studies out there and I mean I mean every year we say I read so many, read so many things on concussions which, of course, impacted your life.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about the study or the concept of repetitive head impacts. Okay, those little hits that you get from hitting the soccer ball or tackling in football and rugby and hockey and lacrosse, and now women's rugby is the fastest growing sport and I know in Canada and it's growing. We had that young lady run over everybody in the Olympics, right. Yet these are contact sports and we have children like yours, with developing brains, playing these sports. What is your position on these contact sports and children playing?
Speaker 2:So that is such a tough one because sports are so important in ways other than just the physical activity. They promote teamwork, working together, a sense of belonging. There's so much to it. So I am a huge sports fan and I am for sports. But I don't think we need to have all the head contact like in, you know, hockey, phantom hockey. We don't need to be checking. When my son played, when our country started checking, canada was not checking at that same age. When our country started checking, canada was not checking at that same age. I think we could get rid of the heading of the ball in the youth soccer up to high school. I think that we need to delay that kind of contact until at least after they're 14. The problem is the kids are not always the ones making the decisions.
Speaker 1:Ha Yep.
Speaker 2:And parents. I found through my experience, when your child is in high school or middle school, a lot of times your social life revolves around the youth sports, their identity.
Speaker 1:Yes, a lot of times your social life revolves around the youth, sports and their identity.
Speaker 2:Yes and so. For example, my daughter played um hockey, she played soccer and she ran track. That all went away, so I had a big social life with that. She never played high school sports again. That is the no, absolutely, it's.
Speaker 1:Um, you know that I mean. The reason my son played the sports that he's playing is that the coaches came up to him, right, and the kids came up to him and they just my boy, just wanted to be with the gang, right? We had no idea that these back-to-back sports were gonna, you know, impact him to the point. You know that that he took his life, right. Nobody knows that. That's why we ended up writing our book, that's why you know you're working on your book, because we have no idea that these sports can also, when it comes down to brains, injure people to the point where, like your daughter here, 13 years, is still trying to come back.
Speaker 1:And I think that goes to the fact that, as a society, we just don't appreciate the fragility of the brain and the value we only got. One of these things, you know. And then, once you know, once you deal with, you know, your or my situation, when you start really studying the brain, you start thinking, oh my God, did I actually put this at risk, right? Or I needed and, to your case, I need to get on this because this is serious, right, where so many concussions are just not really, you know, paid attention to because of lack of quality of care and standardization.
Speaker 1:So you know the, you know that that it's it's a, it's a big, it's a big factor and that's why we try to focus parents on explaining with love. It's like I love you and you shouldn't be heading the ball, you shouldn't be tackling at this age, and we usually promote 18. We think that in contact sports, if you can join the Army, you can bang your head up if you want. But I I think you're right. Football, I mean high school, is where we're going to be challenged by you know what's the rest of the world doing, and so on and so forth. So we think that delaying exposure in any way, shape or form till at least high school is good.
Speaker 1:And then now when your daughter very competitive, she played sports all year round, right yep yeah yeah, and then you're, I mean, but you know, and at least she wasn't playing soccer, you're like, because you can play soccer year round now, you can play for the travel team, you play for the school, you can play for these private leagues now, and parents are crazy about these sports, man, I mean they, they really are. And's something that you know we need to deal with. And so in your journey right now, okay, where do you still think there's work to be done? I mean, you say we're in a better place regarding concussions. Where can we improve regarding concussions? Where can we improve? Where can we improve as parents, as a medical community, as society, when it comes to brain health and sports or just concussions alone? Where can we go? Where can we go for? How do we make it better?
Speaker 2:I really think, as you have said in the past, education is key because if you know what the risk that you're putting your child at, you're going to do something about it. I think that a lot of parents really do not understand that, so my daughter's was a very acute situation as opposed to the repetitive head injuries, repetitive hits.
Speaker 2:So there's two different modalities there the repetitive and then the acute, both terrible, and parents just need to be aware that the repetitive is often worse than what my daughter had, so I couldn't not be aware because she was a completely different person. When it's just the repetitive, and not necessarily concussions, you're not really aware of what's going on. That's where the education comes in.
Speaker 1:And you're right. I mean there are so many days and I wish my son would have had a career ending injury right On anything right. And he didn't. I mean he had a concussion. It was his third one in two years. And I asked the coach. I said I'm done, how many concussions could my son have in ninth grade, right? And they said we don't know. But here's the book. And he never had another one.
Speaker 1:I never had a reason to pull my son and he kept soldiering on all through these years of pain and misery, not able to communicate, and you don't see that I mean because the kids hide it so well. And then when they get older they get a little bit more distant because they're joining the army or whatever. They're getting to be adults. Who wants to be around mom and dad all the time? And then they just act in such a loving manner until you get this text one day saying I can't be here no more. And I wish that, not that I wish I was in your shoes. I never would wish this kind of pain on anybody, or your pain for that matter.
Speaker 1:I am absolutely just heartbroken for what you had to go through as a parent because of an accident. But your resiliency, your tenacity, your perseverance has allowed you to be here today as a subject matter expert on this issue. And you're, you know you're a. You know you're a brain coach, right. I mean what's that? What's the title? Again, a brain, a certified brains fitness coach, right. But I mean you had to get there through tragedy. But tell me about that, I didn't even know that existed. So what's all that? Did you go to Harvard or something and get that?
Speaker 2:I used to take a course online to educate myself.
Speaker 1:Really yeah, nice.
Speaker 2:Actually Madeline. My daughter took it with me.
Speaker 1:No kidding, who sponsors that?
Speaker 2:It was called the Spencer Institute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Nice program Actually, madeline. My daughter took it with me. No kidding, who sponsors that? It was called the Spencer Institute. I would recommend everybody is listening to this podcast, go online. I'm going to go do it. And because it's all about education and awareness and if, if you're listening to this podcast, you're starting to realize, man, you know, I got to, we only got one brain and if you're hurting, you know.
Speaker 1:We do know that there's a lot of new ways to treat the brain, but we have to prioritize brain health in this country and I do think that you know, because of you know the incidents like you've had to go through and what I've had to go through. We're getting there, but it's still not a part of our standard care and our insurance systems reflect that. Our coverage reflects that. The fact that you have to become a brain coach as a mom and I have to write a book as a dad reflect the fact that we are not educated in the fragility of the brain and the importance of the brain at the same time. So we just throw our kids out there. We think that helmets protect their brain. They don't do a darn thing. They protect the skull, but they don't do anything for the brain.
Speaker 1:In terms of research, where are we at right now? Is there any? You know we've researched a lot. There's a lot of research on concussions. Are you seeing that to start permeate in the medical community? I mean the fact that you had a doctor that saw your daughter, you know, multiple times, which is amazing. It doesn't happen in most of the concussion cases that we're aware of right here in America. I mean, you know and and and. So when you're in your journey and your talks right now, where are your concerns? Where do we? What can we do to improve more?
Speaker 2:Well, I will say to your point one of the issues that I do find is that insurance does not cover a lot of these treatments and that is a problem because I would say most people cannot afford them.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2:They're very expensive, they're very helpful and I don't know what to do without them, because sometimes you don't just get better, you have to retrain your brain. So this research, with all the neuroplasticity and my daughter, for example, this brain injury changed the whole course of her life. She did not plan to do with her life what she is doing, if not for this brain injury.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell the audience where she works right now.
Speaker 2:So she actually did a lot of volunteer work for the Brain Injury Association of America and she was at their annual conference giving a talk. One year and Dr Stern from the CTE Center heard her and I don't know, maybe two years later, three years later, something like that she sent her resume to Dr McKee because she wanted a tour of the lab. She was now in college at this point and she was majoring in neuroscience and she just wanted a tour of the lab. Dr McKee forwarded her resume to Dr Stern and they called her and said oh, come on in. So she thought she was going in. We looked at the lab and he said you know, I heard you speak at the brain injury conference, would like to have you here as an intern. So that's how she started and then she just stayed there until this past July, um, doing research on CTE, and now she is at UConn, uh, getting a PhD in clinical neuropsychology.
Speaker 1:Wow, and then she's gotten back to the point where she's able to do that. That is so amazing and she probably worked on that study that we funded that. We finally looked at all brains under 30, 162 brains up there, including my son's and, yeah, 40% of them had CTE, but 100% of them had structural damage to the brain, 100% of them had cognitive, behavioral or psychological disorders and 80% of them died from suicide. That I mean it is unbelievable, what we have found out in that study and why we need folks like you to get out there with us and help us push so much for change. As we close out, what are your recommendations to parents? We've got parents on this podcast. You know they're all moms and dads. They're concerned. They're listening to this. You've been through a lot. You've educated yourself. What are your recommendations to our parents out there, on anything from concussions or head impacts to contact sports? What do you have to say?
Speaker 2:I would say that if you are going to have your child play a contact sport, you really need to do a lot of research. You need to go and be there, see when they get hit. You can't take a backseat to this. You have to be involved in the sport with them in a way, because there is no way to know exactly what is happening, sometimes until it's too late. So you have to educate yourself the psychological issues that might come up. You can't just brush them off as, oh you know, it's teenager stuff.
Speaker 2:Teenage right yeah so you have to be hyper aware if you want your child to play contact sports. I don't recommend the contact sports till high school, but if you do choose to do that, you really do need to educate yourself, because your child's not going to educate themselves and they're going to want to play. It's up to the parent to do that.
Speaker 1:Now, when you educate yourself, take a look at where your son's or daughter's brain is. At that time, it's just not in a position to be absorbing. You know those blows. So how do people find you? How do they follow Jamie Uretsky and all your journeys and you know and become familiar with who you are concussion mom. You know how do they track you and what do you have going on. What's next? What's next for you?
Speaker 2:So they can find me on Instagram, twitter. I have my website, concussionmomcom. I'm hoping to work on a second book with Kerry Goulet from Stop Concussions. We've started talking about that and I don't. I just keep doing what I'm doing educating, um, people find me and call me for help. That's pretty much what I, what I have been doing lately.
Speaker 1:Well, jamie, you're doing an amazing job and I cannot thank you enough for coming on this podcast sharing your daughter, your story, your daughter's story, and I thank you for the work that you've done with our parents around this country, because this is a huge issue and we are not yet addressing it in the way we're getting better, as you said, but we still have a long way to go to prioritize brain health and understand that we need to change the way we play these sports and we need to change the way that we treat these people when they're injured, to include covering the modalities that are going to improve their brain health, and not say no or force their parents to sell cars or whatever they got a mortgage, homes or, you know, go out of pocket. I mean, these are legitimate medical, uh modalities that are proven and they should be covered. So I cannot thank you enough for your time. I cannot thank you enough for your passion. I wish you the best.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me and thank you for all you do.
Speaker 1:And don't forget again as I close free book online. Go get it, read it 88 pages. You'll know more about repetitive head impacts and concussions almost as much as Jamie, but more than most of the medical people that you're going to encounter in your life, and you need to know this for your kids and daughters. Jamie, once again, thank you so much for coming on the show Another great episode of Broken Brains and we look forward to wishing you the best for the future and our podcast for our audience. We'll see you again next week on Broken Brains, thank you.