The Concussion movie starring Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omatlu came out last Christmas 2015. I decided to go see it as part of my research on how conventional medicine might be treating the problem. Dr. Omatlu did the autopsy on football hall of famer, Mike Webster, in 2002.
I was disappointed with the Concussion movie. So disappointed that I even wrote a press release that everyone in the movie and in real life are focused on the wrong things.
What bugged me was:
1) It was very important to name the disease that they said no one had ever seen before. They named it chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
2) Then they said that football was absolutely responsible for it.
3) Then there was a scene in the movie where Dr. Omatlu supposedly asks: “Why does an apparently healthy favorite son of this city die in disgrace at fifty?”
That’s really puzzling because the Concussion movie shows Mike Webster in a lot of difficulty.
He’d been suffering from obvious mental illness and was even homeless because he often couldn’t remember how to get home. How can anyone who is suffering from loss of memory, who has become homeless, who begs for help with his head, be considered healthy?
NO.
Watch the video:
In the Concussion movie, they can’t tell the difference between a healthy person and an obviously unhealthy person. It also seemed strange that they can’t tell if you’ve got CTE or not until you’re dead. In the Concussion movie, Mike Webster had all the markings and behavoiur of someone seriously ill and even worse, there was NOTHING they could do to make him better or even halt the worsening effects.
But that’s a major part of the problem is that they haven’t got a clue about what healthy look like or feels like in the first place! The emphasis is always on the problem, the disease. It’s not about coming up with a comprehensive solution that gives people the desired outcome.
They’re still doing research that results in statistics. A report in May talked about the brains of a group of retired football players:
The MRIs measured the amount of damage to the brain’s white matter, which connects different brain regions, based on the movement of water molecules in the brain tissue.
1) Seventeen players, or 43 percent, had levels of movement 2.5 standard deviations below those of healthy people of the same age, which is considered evidence of traumatic brain injury with a less than one percent error rate.
2) Twelve of the former athletes, or 30 percent, showed evidence on traditional MRI of injury to the brain due to disruption of the nerve axons, those parts of nerve cells that allow brain cells to transmit messages to each other.
3) On the tests of thinking skills, about 50 percent had significant problems on executive function, 45 percent on learning or memory, 42 percent on attention and concentration, and 24 percent on spatial and perceptual function.
First of all, is this really helpful?
There’s no solution in sight.
My biggest beef is really this: they’re really good at statistical analysis of the existence of a disease. But when it comes to a solution, there’s always confusion. And complexity.
WHY aren’t we talking more about finding comprehensive solutions that can bring about the desired results? Why are we still talking about the lives that could be lost?
The NFL spent $100 million two years ago to get research done. The BIG results were announced last year. This brilliant group of neuroscientists came up with this solution: EXERCISE. Don’t these athletes exercise for a living already?
And exercise is supposed to be a solution for stress too? Professional athletes are among the most stressed out people on this earth – believe it or not. They’re under a huge amount of scrutiny and pressure to perform. It’s very public when they fail.
So what makes the brain weak?
Stress. BUT it doesn’t affect the brain in everyone. It depends on your own set of circumstances as my video points out. Stress is supposed to be short lived. You have a negative feeling, you get over it and move on.
Chronic stress happens when something bothers you over and over. And it’s usually something from the past that you can’t shake off.
You may have regrets, you may be very upset and the more you think about them, the worse you make it.
Depending on the emotional state, whether it’s anger or sadness, jealousy, the negative emotion, it will affect a certain part of the body. And in Classical Chinese medicine we have a pretty good idea of what might happen given the circumstances.
The solutions are right here. You’ve come to right place. In recent weeks I’ve talked about the signs to look for in a concussion. I talked about what to do immediately after a blow to head to check it out yourself. I talked about what to look for when you’re having headaches and sleep problems.
So, it’s not football that is the cause of head injuries. It is more that the first concussion wasn’t dealt with properly and never healed in the first place. The sport isn’t to blame, but I don’t want to blame any way. You can do something about your situation right now in order to change the path you’re going down right now. Don’t let the Concussion movie scare you into helplessness. My work with my clients is all about helping them to break down old perceptions and creating much better and stronger ones.
Healing always comes from within and it comes because you’re brave enough to admit it and look for the solutions and invest in them too.
Be awesome!
Watch Facebook Live every Thursday at 3:30 PM MST/5:30 PM EST at Rapid Injury Recovery with Chinese Sports Psychology www.facebook.com/DrJoannyLiu. NEW! Or Join me on Periscope: https://www.periscope.tv/drjoannyliu right afterwards at 4:00 PM MST/6 PM EST. Look for #YouCanHaveWhatYouWant They won’t be identical videos of course. See you then!
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In the meantime, spread the news that something CAN be done about the aftermath of concussions!
Also please go visit my podcast page for the latest interviews that I’ve been doing.
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We cannot afford to wait for MDs to catch up! I have to become the advocate the activist doctor because no one else is ready to step in. With the tragic murder-suicide of McCann Utu Jr due to inept “management” of his Post Concussion Syndrome, it is paramount that we must do things differently. No more lives so needlessly lost!
Need help adjusting your thoughts and implementing a comprehensive set of solutions uniquely tailored to your circumstances? Apply here for Dr. Joanny’s help. We’ll review your information and send you your next steps.
Dr. Joanny Liu, TCMD “Best Selling Author and founder of Extraordinary Sports Medicine, where we help athletes reverse injury, get back in the game they love and improve their quality of life.”
Best selling book at: Heal Your Concussion: How to Quickly and Effectively Get Back in the Game
