CONNECTING OUR EYES, BRAIN, AND ARMS CAN MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE
Why Tua Tagovailoa Should Not Have Been Back In The Game
The NFL return-to-participation protocol needs to be updated
The recent episode(s) involving Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has again brought to the forefront the topic of traumatic brain injury (Concussion).
Tua’s Concussion
In a recent game against Buffalo, Tua was thrown down causing his head to bounce violently on the ground. Tua got up but fell to the ground again and needed support from his teammates to walk further. That should have been enough to keep him out of the game, but incredibly, he was back in a few minutes later!
In the following game against the Bengals, Tua once again was sacked and was swung and thrown against the ground again hitting his head. This time he remained on the ground while his arms and fingers began to twist, bend, and make strange movements.
These finger positions are termed “posturing” by specialists and are the result of random neurons firing in the brain without any control, stimulating muscles and causing movements and postures that are abnormal.
Visual abnormalities resulting from Concussion
In addition to the neurologic and muscular effects seen with Tua, concussions can cause a variety of eye abnormalities as well.
These abnormalities include:
- Double vision
- Reduced eye tracking
- Difficulty in looking from one point to the next
- Abnormal eye alignment — crossed eyes or wall eyes
- Visual strain
- Visual fatigue
- Glare and light sensitivity
- Blurred vision at distance or near
- Disoriented in space due to vision
- Difficult balance with eyes open
- Reduced depth perception
And most importantly the ability to efficiently process visual information is impaired.
All of these can be due to concussions and are aggravated by repeat concussions.
We wish Tua a complete and rapid recovery, but the truth is, he should never have returned to play following his first injury and certainly should not have been in the game only a few days later.
The return to play criteria
The “return to participation protocol” looks for a player’s ability to resume normal football activities, and unfortunately does not seem to take into consideration subtle visual processing and visually based decision-making damage — instead, it seems to place emphasis on much more gross motor and neurolgic deficits.
Elite professional athletics is an incredibly difficult task and requires both optimal motor as well as cognitive function. It is very difficult to be selected to be a pro athlete and that selection is based on being better than everyone else.
Why would a team want to play an athlete who is not able to perform at 100% in all areas critical to their performance?
By missing subtle visual and cognitive defects present even when a player is able to resume normal activities, teams are not only placing their players at risk but are handicapping their own chances for success.
Players, like Tua, although often begging to play again should be held out of competition until they have had a chance to FULLY recover from all the areas affected by a traumatic brain injury and can participate at the same level they did prior to the injury.
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