Dr. Shawn Eagle

There is hope there.

No matter how long it has been since you've had

your head injury, you can recover.

We have developed plenty of techniques for this.

Going back to 2006 and my last concussion as a football player, they sent me to a dark room for two days.

And we know now...

Only 15 years later, that is the exact opposite thing you should be doing.

But that was standard practice.

And I'm laying there in bed in a dark room, captain of the team, completely isolated from my team and my friends and any social engagement at all.

in an attempt to try to get better, and instead I did start developing panic attacks and, you know, crippling anxiety.

And we kind of have two ends of the research that we do here, the kind of acute management, trying to get people better earlier from the injury, but we're also very concerned with those who have had long-term effects.

from the injury.

We all talk and have heard about chronic traumatic encephalopathy and that's a big focus of what we do because I want people to understand that the science is not really there on that bit yet and yet we're seeing

Stories in the New York Times about athletes taking their own lives because they assume they have CTE when in reality, man, they're probably just anxious and 15 years old and have stress and they need somebody to say, hey, you're not the same person the way Dr. Winters did for me.

We'll be back after this quick message.

And so I think that's why I do this.

Yeah, there was a big moment.

Well, actually, there were several.

Dr. Hooper had a lot of research going on back then, and I noticed I enjoyed participating in those studies and asking why they wanted to know this thing.

And then there was a, I don't remember what course it was, but there was a literature review type assignment that I dove head on into and really enjoyed.