![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/cardenas.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fall\u00a0in\u00a0America, and that means football. With football comes questions and concerns about concussions\u00a0in\u00a0athletes. How long does it take to fully recover from a\u00a0concussion? What happens if an athlete returns to play too soon after a\u00a0concussion? How many concussions are too many?<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just sports where concussions occur. The\u00a0most common cause\u00a0of\u00a0concussion\u00a0in\u00a0NCAA athletes is a car accident. The most common cause of a\u00a0concussion\u00a0overall\u00a0is a fall.\u00a0And a hidden demographic of people experience brain injuries at an alarming rate:\u00a0domestic violence survivors.<\/p>\n
Every minute,\u00a032 people\u00a0in\u00a0the United States experience violence at the hands of an intimate partner.\u00a0Roughly half\u00a0of American women and 40% of American men will experience\u00a0domestic violence\u00a0at least once\u00a0in\u00a0their lives. Most incidents go unreported. One study found that just\u00a0one\u00a0in\u00a0five victims\u00a0sought medical help immediately after suffering a head injury.\u00a0Nearly all\u00a0these injuries involve a blow to the neck or head.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Current research indicates that more than\u00a075%\u00a0of\u00a0domestic violence survivors\u00a0suffer one or more traumatic brain injuries.\u00a0In\u00a0my experience, the most common response to the question, \u201cHow many concussions have you suffered,\u201d is \u201cToo many to count.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
On any given Sunday, you will see up to 30 medical professionals standing on the sidelines of a professional football game. At a high school game, you are likely to see paramedics within eyesight of the players on the field. There are no medical providers who stand outside the home of\u00a0domestic violence survivors\u00a0waiting for an injury to occur. There is no\u00a0concussion\u00a0protocol for those who are abused.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0addition to repeated impacts to the head,\u00a0domestic violence survivors\u00a0often suffer strangulation, being choked, resulting\u00a0in\u00a0decreased oxygen to the brain, loss of bladder and bowel function, seizures, and sometimes death.<\/p>\n
The long-term consequences of repeated\u00a0concussion\u00a0and strangulation include\u00a0sleep disturbance,\u00a0dizziness,\u00a0personality changes,\u00a0and\u00a0memory\u00a0problems. The most common complaint of a\u00a0domestic violence\u00a0survivor who suffers one or more concussions is\u00a0headaches. One silver lining is that these symptoms are treatable.<\/p>\n
Thanks to widespread education and awareness campaigns, athletes have benefited from a sea change\u00a0in\u00a0how brain injuries are recognized and treated. We need to bring that same standard of care to survivors of\u00a0domestic violence\u00a0by establishing a\u00a0concussion\u00a0protocol tailored to their needs.<\/p>\n
We must ensure\u00a0domestic violence survivors\u00a0receive\u00a0concussion\u00a0screenings when they reach the doctor\u2019s office or emergency department \u2014 regardless of whether they exhibit clear signs of a traumatic brain injury. New technologies can make brain injury screening simple and accurate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Diagnostic tests, like Abbott\u2019s\u00a0Alinity i TBI test, can help providers evaluate people for traumatic brain injuries with a small blood sample, by measuring two blood biomarkers\u00a0in\u00a0the brain. We recently implemented this testing capability at the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute. We\u2019re one of the first to adopt the brain injury test, where results come back\u00a0in\u00a0just 18 minutes. That quick turnaround is especially useful\u00a0in\u00a0situations where a provider may have limited time with a survivor who is hesitant to seek medical care. Finally, we must offer everything we provide to athletes: cognitive screening,\u00a0concussion\u00a0rehabilitation, and VIP treatment.<\/p>\n
At the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute\u00a0in\u00a0Morgantown, we design a comprehensive, tailored treatment plan for each patient, which may also include psychiatry, physical rehabilitation, and speech and vision therapy. Personalized approaches like this one help resolve subtle, lingering problems and prepare patients to protect their brain health after they check out of the hospital. Survivors of\u00a0domestic violence\u00a0are our VIPs.<\/p>\n
Society has rightly taken steps to ensure athletes receive top-notch treatment whenever they experience a traumatic brain injury. Survivors of\u00a0domestic violence\u00a0are every bit as deserving of that level of attention and care.<\/p>\n
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of\u00a0<\/em>Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Fists #football #noconcussionprotocol #fordomestic #violence #survivors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s fall\u00a0in\u00a0America, and that… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[3115,3117,3118,3120,3116,3119,3122,3121],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}