As visitors and workers in the Washington, D.C., area slowly return from the Covid-19 home-stay restrictions, they may be hit with a worry about a different kind of distancing: Keeping themselves safe on byways more heavily trafficked by bicycles and scooters, notably rental models whose mechanical soundness is under increasing question. It is difficult to….
Continue ReadingBrain Injury
They’re not just ‘headaches.’ Traumatic brain injuries are real. And serious.
The nation’s commander-in-chief did a big disservice to recently injured service personnel and others who have suffered traumatic brain injuries by dismissing what happened as “not very serious” and just “headaches” of little consequence. Pentagon officials sought to deflect attention from President Trump’s comments at a global economic forum in Davos, Switzerland — off-the-cuff remarks assailed….
Continue ReadingHow does science advance on brain injuries? One star’s grim diagnosis at a time.
Clinicians drew in a postmortem conference a full portrait of patient K-0623, based on a detailed questionnaire and research they had conducted into his life. They learned all about the deceased’s happy childhood, his early high school graduation, and his athletic prowess, including his stardom in an elite collegiate football program. The neurologists, neuropsychologists, and….
Continue ReadingFor safety’s sake: Pedestrians, put down the phone! Bikers, put on the helmet!
With the pedestrian death toll climbing to scary levels and bike-vehicle accidents zooming up too, individuals may need to take common sense steps to safeguard themselves and not rely on motorists or traffic planners for their safety. Just as drivers need to put away electronic devices while they’re on the road, so, too, should folks….
Continue ReadingGet ready, Washingtonians — 20,000 scooters soon may be part of cityscape
In the cooler, rainier autumnal weather, transportation officials may be planting the seeds of significant change for the health, safety, and way that residents and visitors get around Washington, D.C. They may allow a smaller number of private companies to double the number of scooters zipping around the nation’s capital by the new year. By….
Continue ReadingDo health care’s perverse incentives lure MDs into deliberate misdiagnosis for profit?
When doctors become medical outliers, shouldn’t hospitals, colleagues, insurers, and the rest of us ask how and why an individual practitioner diverges so much from the way others provide care? Olga Khazan details for the Atlantic magazine the disturbing charges involving Yasser Awaad, a pediatric neurologist at a hospital in Dearborn, Mich. As she describes….
Continue ReadingAs NFL talks up lesser head harms, study shows repeated slams injure brains
Although commentators and pro football itself have argued that rule changes by the National Football League have notably reduced possible head harms, new evidence from college athletes shows that even knocks that aren’t severe enough to be deemed concussions may injure young brains. Those findings come from a University of Rochester study based on brain….
Continue ReadingWhat’s prodding contact sports’ big shifts on head trauma? Insurance companies’ ‘panic’
Parents and young athletes may have wrestled with the decision whether to play contact sports, as research shows the injuries that players can suffer from blows to the head. But lesser known parties to the games may be the undoing of professional and organized soccer, hockey, and football: Insurance companies. The firms, which provide necessary and….
Continue ReadingNHL short-changes players and medical science in concussion settlement
The National Hockey League, with its new settlement of claims on head injuries, has done the sport and its most important component — players, past, present, and future — no service. Instead, the game’s leaders have shown a disregard for factual medical science, and an excess appreciation for profits over people. In contrast to the….
Continue ReadingIn renewed call for baby walker ban, a reminder how hazards hang around
Little ones may prove to be a handful to get around, but grownups need to be wary of products to make babies mobile. Child safety advocates have not only re-upped their warnings, in particular, about infant walkers, but based on a new study of data from hundreds of thousands of emergency room visits between 1990….
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