In the News

CFL Players line up in a Grey Cup Game. Photo: Wikimedia

The year has begun and our first edition of the 2018 journal has published: the January issue marks the beginning of our 28th year focusing on the publication of original research in the field of sports medicine.

One of the highlights of this issue is a study of 454 Canadian Football League (CFL) players:  “Why Professional Football Players Chose Not to Reveal Their Concussion Symptoms During a Practice or Game.”

The lead author of the study, J. Scott Delaney MDCM is an associate professor and research director at the department of emergency medicine, McGill University Health Center, in Montreal Canada.  He has published frequently in CJSM on the topic of concussion, including a 2015 study looking at what factors influenced university athletes to report (or not) symptoms of concussion in practice or games.

In this study, he and his team focused on a different population: professional CFL players. Dr. Delaney is already being approached by media outlets for his opinions on what the study results mean for CFL players in particular, and for all athletes in general. This very day he has an opinion piece published in The Globe and Mail, often considered Canada’s national paper of record.

One of the vexing issues in contemporary sports medicine is the failure of recognition of concussion when it occurs on the field of play.  This can be a failure of systems put in place for the athlete’s protection (e.g. the recent hit the NFL quarterback Tom Savage took in a game) to a failure on an athlete’s part to report a head injury as they might an ankle or a knee injury.  In this recent Delaney study, the issue was not one of knowledge acquisition — the CFL athletes were knowledgeable about the injury and reporting processes — but one of translating that knowledge into appropriate action.

Emily Kroshus, a recent guest on the CJSM podcast, has explored different dimensions of this dilemma in studies she has published in our journal.  Dr. Delaney, in the Globe and Mail editorial, discusses how he has McGill student athletes sign ‘concussion contracts’ pre-season in an attempt to encourage appropriate reporting behavior.  He’ll be joining us soon for our first podcast of 2018, where our readers can ‘tune in’ and hear first hand what he has to say about these issues.

So, keep your eye posted to these blog pages for that podcast announcement, and in the meantime read the new study.

We’re looking forward to our continued work with you all in the journal and in our emerging media over the course of 2018!