As a part of his PhD in nursing from UBC, Ramsay tracked just below 23,000 kids and youth (ages 5-18) who had been recognized with concussions in 2016-17.
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Scott Ramsay receives his PhD in nursing from UBC this week, together with his deal with concussions in youth. And, on some degree, he was one among his personal case research.
Ramsay, 32, was a bruising, stay-at-home defenceman within the WHL for 4 seasons, a 6-foot-2, 218 pounder who break up time between the Chilliwack Bruins, Seattle Thunderbirds and Drugs Hat Tigers.
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The Abbotsford product was regarded extremely sufficient that he was a free-agent invite by the Anaheim Geese for the 2010 Younger Stars event in Penticton.
He needed to retire from the sport after the 2010-11 season, the sufferer of 5 concussions. He was 19 years outdated.
He acquired a concussion throughout a struggle with Tayler Jordan of the Canucks at Younger Stars on Sept. 15, 2010, the again of his head hitting the ice because the bout got here to an finish. He performed his first WHL recreation that season with Thunderbirds on Nov. 15, in opposition to the Vancouver Giants on the Pacific Coliseum, cleared by docs and advised that he was advantageous to play.
“My mother got here down after the sport and she or he mentioned, ‘It’s essential go inform your coach proper now that you simply’re not OK, as a result of I simply watched you play a full recreation and also you appear like a skeleton of your self,’” Ramsay recalled. “And he or she was proper. I’d search for and the rating clock was spinning. It was horrific.”
He went to highschool after hockey, studied nursing and wound up with a job at B.C. Youngsters’s Hospital. He was primarily based within the emergency room as a part of his coaching and “and we saved getting these youngsters who would get concussions they usually had no schooling and that had me considering, ‘What’s happening right here?’”
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He finally moved to the outpatient neurology clinic there, the place they deal with extra advanced concussion conditions, with sufferers who’re normally six months previous their preliminary analysis.
“I keep in mind this one child so vividly. Sun shades on, not capable of go away his room, blinds drawn, pitch black,” Ramsay mentioned. “All I might take into consideration was once I had my post-concussion syndrome. I’d be sitting on the sofa, my sun shades on, not capable of do something. It was simply so debilitating.”
That brings us again round to his dissertation. He checked out just below 23,000 circumstances throughout the province of youngsters and youth (ages 5-18) who had been recognized with concussions in 2016-17. He mentioned that just below 20 per cent had a well timed followup go to with a physician — outlined by Ramsay as a followup throughout the first month of their harm — and simply over 75 per cent had “no followup in any respect.”
“That’s not a small pattern measurement. We’re not speaking 50 youngsters. We’re speaking 10s of 1,000s of children,” mentioned Ramsay. “On descriptive statistics alone, it’s fairly thoughts boggling to suppose that so many youngsters are affected simply in B.C. alone.”
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His examine discovered that when you had been from a decrease socioeconomic standing, you had been much less more likely to have that well timed followup.
“It speaks to one thing concerning the system typically. It says that these youngsters are seen after which left to their very own units in the event that they don’t have an excellent household doctor or somebody to advocate for them,” Ramsay mentioned. “I see it and I work in it every single day and it frustrates me.
“I spend main elements of my day doing major care and looking for folks household docs.”
Ramsay’s examine additionally discovered that when you had a delayed followup or no comply with up your odds of getting persistent put up concussion signs “had been mainly double.”
“That’s telling us that there’s a solution to forestall these signs from occurring on this inhabitants and we’re doing nothing about it,” he defined. “As somebody who has lived it and tried to advocate for it at a number of ranges, it’s disappointing. I spend a variety of time giving folks insights into schooling and what assets can be found and what steps to take. I’m hoping that my subsequent stepping-stone in my profession can enable me to do extra for this inhabitants.”
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He believes that a lot of that is tied to how society nonetheless views a concussion as an “invisible harm,” in contrast to when somebody has a solid or wants to make use of crutches.
He additionally says that “sports activities is the plain one, however I can’t let you know how a lot I deal outdoors of sports activities as properly. As a result of folks aren’t making an attempt to get again to a sport, there’s even much less assets accessible.”
“In different areas of well being care, the analysis is admittedly nice,” Ramsay continued. “In concussions, there’s a variety of easy care and analysis that we don’t do that would improve folks’s lives. From a disciplinary perspective and being a nurse, I feel I see issues otherwise than different well being care suppliers. I’m going to attempt to assist these populations which might be marginalized and don’t have entry to care or understudied.”
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