You Asked, Bruce Answered: Concussions, TBI & Brain Trauma | Broken Brains

A concussion may happen in an instant, but its effects aren't always limited to that moment.

In this educational solo episode of Broken Brains, host Bruce Parkman examines the long-term consequences of concussions, repetitive head impacts, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and blast exposure—particularly among military veterans and contact sports athletes.

Bruce addresses common questions surrounding brain trauma, including whether an old concussion can contribute to symptoms years later and whether blast exposure can affect the brain even when a service member was never knocked unconscious.

He also discusses symptoms such as brain fog and attention difficulties, misconceptions surrounding TBI, and why veterans should document blast exposures, concussions, and other head injuries in their medical records.

The conversation then turns to contact sports and the cumulative effect of repetitive impacts. Bruce explains why the concern isn't limited to diagnosed concussions. Repeated smaller impacts can also matter, making awareness and monitoring especially important for parents and young athletes.

The central message is simple: pay attention to your brain.

Understanding your history, recognizing changes, documenting exposures, and seeking appropriate evaluation can be important steps toward protecting long-term brain health.

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Chapters

00:00 Understanding Brain Trauma and Its Long-Term Impact

00:30 What Veterans and Contact Sports Athletes Need to Know

01:28 Answering Your Questions About Concussions

02:28 Can an Old Concussion Affect You Years Later?

05:26 Blast Exposure Without Losing Consciousness

09:21 Common TBI Misconceptions Among Veterans

13:22 Youth Sports, Concussions, and Repetitive Head Impacts

17:35 What You Can Do to Protect Your Brain Health

Resources

MPFACT – Repetitive Brain Impact in Youth Sports
https://www.mpfact.org

Learn More

Mac Parkman Foundation
https://www.mpfact.org

Produced by Security Halt Media

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey folks, Bruce Parkman here with another episode of Broken Brains with your host, Bruce Parkman, the official podcast of the Mack Parkman Foundation, where we look at the issue of repetitive brain trauma, from repetitive impacts and contact sports to repetitive blast exposure in our military veterans and what these conditions are doing to the brains, futures, and well-being of our veterans, children, and athletes, all the way to the professional level. It's very important that you understand this because it's not trained to the stakeholders like doctors, nurses, psychologists. We trust our children and ourselves to. So we are that front line of information and awareness so that you can make better decisions. Today, one of my favorite things to do is to answer questions from our audience. Believe it or not, we are one of the fastest growing brain podcasts on the internet, and we're getting a lot of attention because this is a, unfortunately, an issue that affects millions of Americans. And we all know somebody has played contact sports, has served in the military, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. And we have to make better decisions. We have to influence better policy. And people have a lot of questions because, again, we don't know too much about this. We do know a lot about it. It's just not public. And that's why at the Mac Parkman Foundation, we do our best to push the knowledge and resources we have out there for you, our advocate and our viewer, and we really appreciate your attendance. And don't forget, send this podcast around to everybody you know, because when we talk to people about it, they're very interested. It is growing quite quite a lot. So today, I got some questions from the audience. I'm gonna just go rip through them and answer them to the best I can. And when you ask me a question, you know, when I was an instructor in special forces, every now and then I'd get a question I couldn't answer. And I'll admit it. I'll tell you, if I don't know the answer to it, I will find out. And guess what? I will find out, and I will follow up. So let's go through the questions that have come in over the last month or so and see what we can do to go ahead and make you a smarterer individual. That's NCO speak there. Smarterer. I make words up all the time. Our first question is from Mike in the big old state of Texas. I had several concussions when I was younger and never really thought about them afterwards. Can symptoms from old concussions show up years later? Well, Mike, it all depends on how bad those concussions were. If those were loss of conscious concussions where you literally blacked out for a period of time, you know, the impact of that on your brain was probably very significant. Now, even though you've had a what would be a very, very bad concussion, it also depends on how long the time was between concussions because the brain can heal, especially when you're younger and neuroplasticity is at its highest level. As we often say on this show, a concussion is an event that happens. I mean, you cannot prevent concussions. They're just part of life. You walk into a wall, you you hit your head, you have a hard tackle. These are parts of life. And the brain is absolutely designed to heal from that. So if you've had several concussions when you were younger, like I did, I had, you know, a couple I fell off one of those monkey bars and cracked my skull and completely blacked out. Uh your brain is probably fine. Nothing to worry about. It's if you had those concussions and you had a lot of exposure to repetitive head impacts, that's the concern. Because now it becomes a lifestyle. And now we have the head and the brain getting impacted over and over, and that impedes the ability of neuroplasticity to heal the brain. So if you're having symptoms at this point and you have a history of concussions, remember you can go ahead and get checked out and get tested to see if your brain has been impacted, if it's not functioning properly. And we usually find this in the form of depression, you know, anxiety, just not feeling getting up with me, but my brain starts, you know, you know, getting to a point where I probably need to treat it better, I start stuttering. Okay. These are symptoms that we that we do have. So if you are showing some signs of brain fog, you know, uh, you know, just inability to pay attention, your mind's wandering, you're just concerned. Well, there are, you know, you can go get a scan, uh, you know, DTI scans, spec scans, you can get scanned. And if you have an extensive history, look up traumatic encephalopathy syndrome protocols. Four questions. You know, do you have, you know, have you played a lot of contact sports or have you had a lot of blast exposure? In your case, be contact sports or concussions. If you haven't had the lifestyle, you're probably good to go. But if you do have symptoms, you know, as always, please get them checked out. Because if you had a combination of, you know, contact sports and those concussions, then there is the possibility your brain could have been impacted while you were young, and it might need some treatment to go ahead and get it optimized and functioning properly. Thank you for your question. The next question is from Sarah in North Carolina. My husband is a veteran and was around a lot of explosions during his deployments. Can someone have a blast-related brain injury without ever being knocked unconscious? Sarah, absolutely. And that is the problem in the focus of this podcast, the foundation, and my entire life until the Lord takes me, is because when we're not knocked unconscious, we don't have symptoms. So therefore, for the last whenever, you know, hundreds of years, and more importantly, in the last 30 or 40, we have assumed that this is doesn't impact our brains, that it's safe. That's why, you know, contact sports are kept being played by kids. And our veterans undergo enormous amounts of uh repeated or repetitive blast exposure when they're in military service or in your husband's case during deployments. And we can't avoid these. So, yes, depending on the frequency and the severity of those explosions, there is a possibility that your husband's brain could be impacted. And those that should be checked out. And it should be part of his medical records. Now, as soldiers, one of the things that we sometimes do in our, we'll just say, because we want to be men, men, men, is that we kind of remove things from our medical records, or we don't admit when we've been hurt. Or we assume that because I wasn't knocked unconscious, that that IED blast or that mortar, that incoming mortar, artillery round, was just part of doing my job. And that is where our veterans let themselves down. Every time that we are impacted by our military service, we have to document that. And that's not being, you know, uh, you know, effeminate. It's not being a, you know, you know, it's it's not being a non-man, all right? It's about being truthful to yourself because the, you know, that's what the VA is all about. And the VA cannot do its job, or at least try to do its job in certain cases, if it doesn't have evidence of that incident or those incidents. So in your husband's case, you know, I would say if he is showing any signs of, you know, mental health problems, you know, he's he's just, you know, can't get up, he's, you know, kind of apathetic, uh, maybe depressed, anxious, whatever. And he has had a history of those blasts, then absolutely he needs to get down to the local VA or he and he needs to get checked out. He needs to talk to them about what happened to him. And guess what? If they're not willing to accept it, then you give us a call and we'll call in for him. Okay. Because the the, you know, he deserves to get the proper treatment he has. Now, once he gets done with the VA, if he doesn't get what he needs in terms of treatment and modalities, because the VA cannot offer them, that's where we can help you once again. But yes, because of your husband's military service, and I thank him profusely for serving our country, especially, you know, going downrange, um, he needs to get checked out. Loss of consciousness is only indicative of a very severe concussion. It does not it does not uh mean that your brain has not been impacted. Those smaller and just as powerful explosions can impact the brain just as much and even more than a loss of conscious uh event because of the frequency and the lack of ability for the brain to heal. So thank you very much uh for that question. Jason, from the great state of Florida, which we are recording from uh right now, what is the biggest misconception you wish veterans understood about uh traumatic traumatic brain injury or TBI? Jason, what I would say to that is that, you know, just like our last question, veterans don't understand what a TBI really is. And that is due to, I would say, the lack of information and perception. We usually feel that a TBI has to be a massive event where my body's been blown across the room or across the parking lot, wherever. And, you know, I have been severely impacted where you know I don't function or I have symptoms, right? I've dizziness, I'm confused, I'm vomiting, um, I'm hurt, right? I mean, a lot of these blasts come with fragmentation wounds and a lot of, you know, injuries, broken bones from flying debris. You know, but we always think that TBI has to be like just say an IED event, right? Or an incoming massive rocket attack, right? That's not the case. A traumatic brain injury can happen during those events, for sure. But it also can happen from the repetitive exposure to blasts that do not have the symptoms that you would think a major IED would have. And thus, you know, we think that they're just, you know, they're safe, right? Didn't bother me. So our veterans need to be educated uh on the TBI and the fact that the TBI is just not something that you also can recover from. So two parts of this. Number one is understand that a TBI can not only just be an event, but a series of events that have impacted our brains. The second part is to understand that these TBIs, even though they don't have symptoms, are also, you know, you know, uh the they can also have a deleterious or or or or or or negative impact on the brain, and that is mental health. And they need to be able to tie those two together because if they have had a TBI, even one significant TBI, even though they could have recovered, remember the brain, the brain is a it's a dark hole in terms of knowledge and science. You know, no TBI event is ever the same. It could come from different angles, different, you know, different, you know, you know, different waves of force could be a blast, it could be the the impact of you getting thrown across, you know, into a vehicle or something. The TBI happens in in a multiplicity of ways that just cannot be documented and it cannot be accurately diagnosed. We have no idea, once the brain's impacted, what actually is going on. We think we're healed because we can talk, we can walk, we can communicate, but then at home we're angry or we're upset or we're impulsive and we fire off or we're lazy and we're arrogant or we're, you know, we're apathetic and we can't get out of our own way. So the TBI can also be something that emanates the damage can show itself in the form of mental illness, and we have to get checked out. So I would say those were the two biggest misconceptions about TBI, that it doesn't have the biggest event, and that once a TBI, you you know, because it you know maybe doesn't have a long-term uh implication because it wasn't, you know, was a it was a mortar blast or an artillery blast, though significant, it can still impact you even years later. And that's why monitoring your brain health and your mental health, which is the first indicator that we have a problem, is so important. So thank you very much for that uh that question. And finally, Amanda in Colorado. My son plays high school football. Should I be more concerned about diagnosed concussions or all the smaller hits he takes throughout the system symptoms? Amanda, these are two equally important issues that cannot be we cannot, you know, and the one is not more concerning than the other. However, when together they are there, it's even it's even you know more significant that we pay attention. First of all, the concussions are important because your your ba your son's brain has been damaged, and we have to make sure that he's properly recovering before he, you know, you know, um before he makes his brain available for more, you know, more for more impacts. And that's not just time, it's testing and making sure that your son's not going back on the field before his brain has had a chance to recover. That means you have to take your son to a concussion specialist. They know these issues, they know these problems, they're more educated on this than anybody. I didn't even know there was a concussion specialist because I've had so many concussions, I just took them to the doctor. I figured, ah, two weeks, he's good. No. With what we know now, absolutely not. However, it's the smaller hits that are the primary problem when it comes to neuroinflammation. Because every practice, dependent on your son's position, if he's on the line, a defensive lineman, an offensive lineman, a running back, a linebacker, tight end, those are all on the line, guys, okay, he's taking a lot of hits. He gets hit on almost every play in practice and in the game. These hits over time start to produce damage that becomes, you know, basically, you know, it creates neuroinflammation. And that neuroinflammation is very, very problematic as your son gets older. So it's very important to take a look at those hits because, in the total aggregate, all those hits add up to a lot of impact to the brain and can very significantly impact or damage your son's brain. It's also the lifestyle, the lifestyle that you allow your son to live. Does he just play football? Is it for one season a year? Or does he play, like my son did, another contact sport like wrestling and then snowboarding? Or does he skateboard? Does he have other recreational activities that also involve the brain? These extend the amount of impacts that your son's brain takes and also exacerbates the neural inflammation because now it becomes long-term. The brain cannot heal, the brain cannot, you know, um recover, and then the brain starts to be damaged. So I would say consider them both equally. But if they're happening at the same time, you have concussions and he's going right back out there in practice, or he plays back-to-back contact sports, or he plays football for travel teams in high school and all that, then I would consider them both. And I would also consider taking your son out of football. If he's had one more than one concussion, absolutely, you don't want him playing football. It's just not worth it. Because I'll tell you, your son's probably not playing in the NFL. And if he's going to be an astronaut or a doctor, which he has a much better chance of becoming, uh, then he's going to need that brain. And that brain is way more important than wins and losses. And, you know, unfortunately, wearing that shirt on Friday for the football team is really, really cool. So take them both into consideration. But when they are both happening simultaneously, yeah, that's not good for your son. Especially if he's playing, if he's played, if he's played a lot of football starting very, very early, then you really need to keep an eye on him because the probability of his brain having been impacted is pretty significant. And I would absolutely get him tested in order to ensure that his brain is okay. Thank you so much for that question. Folks, we're going to go ahead and uh I'm going to get to some more of these on another episode. We really thank you for bringing in these questions. They mean a lot to us, and they also allow us to understand, you know, what is out there, what what is missing out there from the knowledge that you all have as parents and athletes and veterans, and how we can better align these podcasts to provide you the information that you need in order to have the answers that you deserve. Till the next episode, uh till the next episode, thank you so much. This is Bruce Parkman with our uh uh with the official podcast of the Mac Parkman Foundation, Broken Brains. Look, if you like us, and I hope you do, please recommend us on all the social media outlets, YouTube, Apple, you know, you know, Facebook, Instagram. You'll see our reels. Please follow or subscribe us and pass out to us uh out to your friends because we really appreciate it as we continue to grow and let us know what we can do better. Thank you so much for your time. And our next episode of Broken Brains, we'll see you then. Thank you and God bless.