Great article -- thanks for forwarding it!

"Gentle Ben" yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1162227826.188605.326590@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2314899

NFL won't bite on dentist's concussion device
By Peter Keating
ESPN The Magazine

Shaun Alexander is one of the fortunate. Some 20 minutes after being
leveled by Redskins linebacker LaVar Arrington, the league MVP wandered
the Seattle sideline, unable to find his guards or tackles. Not until
he spotted Matt Hasselbeck on the jumbo screens at Qwest Field did he
realize he had been knocked cold and removed from the field.

Alexander recovered his smile and his moves in time to torch the
Panthers a week later in the conference championship game. But Priest
Holmes is still trying to recover from multiple hits to the head and
spine, including a helmet-to-helmet shot he took against the Chargers
four months ago. Wayne Chrebet's career ended in November after what
was at least his ninth concussion. And the Rams, Jets and Browns had
starting QBs sidelined during the season because of blows to the head.

Even as the NFL changes rules and helmet makers improve their designs,
the league says concussion rates have stayed level at about 0.4
incidents per game in recent seasons -- about 100 per year. But teams
report only half of these. In the four seasons between 2000 and 2003,
clubs listed a total of 203 concussions on weekly injury reports,
according to data compiled by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Not all
teams suffer equally. Some clubs reported multiple head injuries in
each of the years. The Colts listed 20 concussions.

The Patriots listed zero.

And a small-town New England dentist, who literally has been inside
Patriots players' heads for 25 years, says he knows why.

"This is Curtis Martin," says Gerald Maher, as he extends his hand. His
palm reveals a plaster model of the 2004 rushing champion's teeth and
jaw.

Maher is 59, with receding white hair, a compact build and the flinty,
but jovial, features of the Yankee Irish. Lined with striped wallpaper
and dental hygiene posters, his office in South Weymouth, Mass., is
unremarkable -- except for one wall that is covered with photos of
athletes who have been his patients. One shows super-middleweight Scott
Pemberton leveling an opponent, Omar Sheika, amid a spray of sweat. "If
Sheika had one of your mouthpieces," reads Pemberton's inscription, "he
might have taken this shot better."

It's a comforting thought for Maher's devotees, a group that includes
more than 60 active NFLers. Maher has been working with the Patriots
since 1979. In addition to taking X-rays and performing root canals, he
has custom-fit hundreds of players with mouthpieces that both he and
many of them believe protect against football's scariest blows, hits
that average 98 times the force of gravity.

players, Maher produces a skull to demonstrate how its parts, and his
mouthguard, work. The lower jaw, or mandible, extends up from the chin,
ending in a knuckle-like knob called a condyle. The skull, or temporal
bone, makes up the rest of the head and houses the brain. In between
the jaw and skull, at the temporomandibular joint, a dime-size disk of
cartilage sits atop the condyle.

According to Maher, 64 percent of adults have misaligned mandibles.
When someone who is "off his disk" is struck with sufficient force, the
top of the jaw can be driven smack into the skull, causing a
concussion. Maher says he can realign a patient's mouth to center the
jaw and make sure the cartilage disk, not the brain, absorbs a hit to
the chin, mouth or cheek. "The disk is like an air bag in a car," he
explains. "It makes sure you don't go through the windshield."

Maher has been working on mouthpieces since the late 1970s, when he
first started to talk with local legend (and patient) Marvin Hagler
about why some boxers can take a punch while others have glass jaws. In
adapting mouthguards for football players over the years, Maher has
developed a protective device that looks and feels like a retainer. Two
small pieces of acrylic, joined by stainless steel bands, fit securely
onto to the lower molars. That leaves more room to talk and breathe
than traditional "bite-and-boil" upper mouthpieces.

"The best thing it does for you is that you know when the blow comes,
it's going to be there," says Patriots linebacker Matt Chatham. "With
other mouthpieces, there's a mental process you go through where you
have to figure out whether to bite down or hold it in place. This just
clicks right onto your teeth."

Other Pats and ex-Pats, from Vincent Brisby to Dan Koppen to Lawyer
Milloy to Asante Samuel, offer similar testimonials. Each suffered at
least one concussion before they began using Maher's mouthguard; none
has since. "These guys are human beings, not pieces of meat," says
Maher, who wrestled and played rugby at Holy Cross and who has served
on his local board of health since 1987. "But so many get concussions
and don't tell anybody, because they're afraid somebody will take their
job."

Maher is not the first person to suggest that mouthguards can prevent
head injuries in football. In 1963, a team of dentists outfitted Notre
Dame with custom-made pieces and reported a dramatic decrease in
concussions. Today, the NCAA mandates mouthguards for all its football
players. The American Dental Association and the American Academy of
Pediatrics recommend them for high school players, too, in part because
they "may reduce the severity and incidence of concussions." Last
season, more than 2,000 football players in the Philadelphia school
system wore "Brain-Pads," mouthpieces that are not custom-fitted but
are designed to be clenched between the upper and lower teeth.

No biomechanical studies support the commonsense theory that keeping
the jaw and skull separated helps reduce shock to the brain. For
example, nobody has yet conducted controlled experiments to measure the
difference in the force absorbed by skulls fitted with mouthguards and
by those that are not. "The jury is still out, although, anecdotally,
many people have said it makes a difference to have that shock
absorption," says Kevin Guskiewicz, director of the Sports Medicine
Research Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"I think Dr. Maher's idea should get some time and attention."

If the evidence for Maher's mouthguards is anecdotal, some of the
anecdotes are pretty good. Like the one about Steve Trapilo, the Boston
College guard who became famous for catching Doug Flutie when Flutie
jumped into his arms after making his miracle pass against Miami in
1984. Trapilo went to see Maher as a high school freshman, after he'd
been knocked out by a hit to the side of the head. Maher fit him for a
mouthguard. Over the rest of his career, which included five years with
the Saints, Trapilo broke or bent 26 face masks. He never suffered
another concussion.

Or the one about the Duxbury (Mass.) High School football team, whose
coaches consulted Maher before the start of last season after suffering
a rash of head injuries. Maher custom-designed mouthpieces for 11
players. "Our returning players had had 44 concussions over the three
prior years," says coach Dave Maimaron. "This year, we had only three.
One was our freshman quarterback, and the other two were not wearing
the mouthguards when they got hit." The squad went 13-0 and won the
state championship.

The NFL, however, doesn't require mouthguards, and 40 percent of
players don't wear them. Elliot Pellman, the league's medical liaison
and head of its committee on mild traumatic brain injury, has yet to be
impressed by the claims that link mouthpieces to the prevention of
brain trauma. "I can give you 100 dentists who say they've got the best
method for reducing concussions," he says. "Many times I've had them in
my office. One brought me a box of cookies. My response to that person
and to 20 others is that I'm intrigued, but it's your job to prove to
me your idea does what you say it does."

One of Maher's earliest patients, Hall of Fame cornerback Mike Haynes,
continued to consult Maher after being traded to the Raiders. On Oct.
15, 1984, Haynes wrote Maher a note that read in part: "Thanks to the
mouthpiece, I can't remember when I had my last concussion, and I have
had plenty of situations where I could have had one." Haynes retired in
1989 and has been the NFL's vice president for player development since
2002. He and Maher met up at Super Bowl XXXVIII in Houston. Over a
Mexican dinner, they discussed Maher's mouthguard.

"Mike, you never sent any Raiders to me," Maher recalls saying.

"That's because I knew I had an edge, and I didn't want to share it,"
Haynes replied. But, Haynes added, now that he was "on the other side
of the fence," he wanted to get the word out. So the two men scheduled
a conference call with Pellman, and Maher sent Pellman material on
mouthguards and concussions. But Pellman canceled the call, and
another, and a third, the last only five minutes before it was to take
place. "It was extremely unprofessional, a total slap in the face,"
says Maher.

"I have many things going on," says Pellman, who doesn't recall setting
up or canceling the calls. "There's nothing personal. I have no grudge
against him." According to Maher, Haynes later suggested the dentist
apply for a grant from NFL Charities, through which a committee,
including Pellman, disburses research funds once a year. In June 2004,
Maher submitted a request for $30,000 to fit 60 NFL players with
mouthguards.

He never heard back from the league.

* * *

By training, Pellman is a rheumatologist