CJSM Podcast: Dr. David Howell looks at pediatric concussions

One of the top young guns in the world of pediatric sports medicine research is David Howell, PhD, ATC of Children’s Hospital Colorado, and the University of Colorado School of Medicine.  Dr. Howell has graced the pages of the CJSM blog before and, even more notably, the pages of the journal itself many times.  He has been one of CJSM’s more prolific authors over the last few years.

When we recently published several of his articles within a span of months, I knew it was time to reach out and get him on the podcast.

Listeners will not be disappointed — Dr. Howell is as erudite and lucid a speaker as he is a writer.  Together in this, our newest podcast, he and I discuss “Breaking research developments in pediatric and adolescent concussions.”  We were able to focus on three of his most recent studies published in CJSM:

• Concussion symptom profiles among child, adolescent and young adult athletes
• Reliability of objective eye-tracking measures among healthy adolescent athletes
• Near point of convergence and gait deficits in adolescents after sport-related concussion

Dr. Howell’s work continues to fill a significant research gap noted by the Berlin consensus statement on concussion group — the relative lack of evidence for how to diagnose and manage concussions in the under 13 year old crowd.  Not surprisingly, several of these new CJSM studies have received a lot of buzz, most especially the first study in that litany (on Concussion symptom profiles).  As someone who sees concussions in this age group on a nearly daily basis, I have found the results of this published research to be, already, of significant practical use.  The Altmetrics on the paper underscore the importance of the work.

This newest podcast can be found with all of our podcasts here on the CJSM website and here on iTunes  And don’t forget you can subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes so you never miss one.

Thank you, again, Dr. Howell for the continued work you do in the field of sport medicine at large, and in the area of pediatric sport-related concussion in particular.