Lab Life Video Series: Minds Matter Concussion Program

Lab Life: Minds Matter Concussion Program

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[Text] Lab Life: Minds Matter Concussion Program

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Kristy B. Arbogast, PhD

Minds Matter Concussion Program is really an integrated research and clinical care program that looks at all aspects of concussion care.

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From how we prevent the injury from happening in the first place, and then, once the injuries happen, how do we diagnose them in a timely and efficient way?

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And then how can we get those children back to their activities as soon as possible?

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I think one of the exciting things about the Minds Matter Concussion Program is, it's a topic that really affects almost every family.

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Nearly 20% of all adolescents will experience a concussion during their teen years.

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So, by doing research in this area, we know that we are affecting a broad population of children in their families.

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One of the things that we have been employing in our research is an instrumented mouthguard the athletes wear during regular practices and games.

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So, this is a mouthguard that measures how fast the head moves while they're playing sports.

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Whether that's an impact with a ball or an impact with another player.

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This data helps us understand what the brain is experiencing during regular play.

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And then we can look at that data in the laboratory using computational modeling to really try to understand the effect of certain impacts on the brain itself.

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[Text] The mouthguards record data to help researchers understand how head impacts affect the brain.

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Declan Patton, PhD

So approximately 5,000 patients go through the monumental program each year, and we try to learn what we can from each and every one of them.

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We are currently studying the effectiveness of headgear in flag football.

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Flag football is an emerging sport becoming more popular.

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And as such, we need to determine the risks associated with flag football, and if headgear can mitigate some of those risks.

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Our participants ranged from those who sustained a concussion and came into the sports medicine clinic, to those who are participating in sports, and whether or not they sustained a concussion.

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We can monitor them, and we can use them to compare healthy controls to our injured participants.

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For our data collection at the professional level, we're able to compare that to establish standards for adult data.

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However, these standards don't exist for youth data.

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So, we're really trying to develop these standards in the youth space for future research.

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[Text] Minds Matter is a world leader in exploring technologies that advance prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of concussion.

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[Text] One third of concussion patients can experience persisting symptoms that can negatively impact quality of life.

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Dr. Patton

Prior to joining Minds Matter, the majority of my research was in protective helmets.

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However, since joining Minds Matter, I've been able to bring my biomechanical expertise and embed that within the multi-disciplinary nature of Minds Matter and put the biomechanical findings within the clinical context.

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Dr. Arbogast

So, we're really looking at this issue from a variety of different disciplines, and I think that has allowed us to advance the science in novel and unique ways.

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Dr. Patton

Because the research focus of Minds Matter is constantly evolving, we're always looking for those research questions of tomorrow.

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And we can find these by looking to our patients and families in the clinic and really being at the forefront of head injury and concussion research.

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[Text] Want to learn more?

Minds Matter Concussion Program

https://tinyurl.com/CIRP-Website