DALLAS -- On Sept. 25, Tua Tagovailoa banged his head on the turf after being knocked to the ground in a game against the Buffalo Bills. Stumbling to his feet, the Miami Dolphins quarterback was evaluated for a concussion, but returned to the field for the second half.
Tagovailoa was carried off his next game Sept. 29 in a stretcher, hospitalized with a concussion that many believed wasn’t his first. The incident sparked an investigation into how the Dolphins handled Tagovailoa’s Sept. 25 injury and prompted the NFL to add ataxia, or lack of coordination, to its concussion protocol.
It can be difficult to decide when a concussed football player can safely return to the field, be it an NFL quarterback or a high school athlete. A UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher wants to give doctors a measurable way to determine whether youth football players have recovered from a concussion to make that critical decision-making process easier.
