ARLINGTON, Va. - Growing up in the South, I had no chance to learn ice skating. That didn't stop me from taking it up later in life in colder environs. When a rink opened near my house, I signed up for lessons.
Honing a new physical skill in my 50s was rejuvenating. The rink's exhilarating music and bracing cold had me grinning like a kid every time I took to the ice.
Until the concussion.
When I wobbled during my fourth lesson, my instinct was to flail and lean back - instead of shifting my weight forward to regain my balance. Disastrous choice. The back of my head hit the ice with a force that shook my entire body. Stars swam in my eyes. Tingling impulses shot down both arms. And I couldn't get up.
My jolted brain had shut down. I had become one of the 1.4 million people each year in the United States who, according to the Brain Injury Association of America, suffer a traumatic brain injury.
Was I foolish to take up a potentially risky activity later in life?
Many of us boomers have by now learned the hard lesson of growing older: Much of what's lost - loved ones, youth, mental powers - won't be regained. So it is with brain trauma; some people don't recover. Even a mild concussion like mine disrupts brain function.
In the emergency room that day, for instance, I could see out of the corner of my eye a shape I recognized as my husband coming toward me, but I couldn't turn my head to greet him. I couldn't speak above a whisper. I was dizzy and nauseous. The room spun so much when I eased onto a table for a CT scan, I felt as if I were parachuting out of a plane.
I worry because I've learned that even mild head injuries can cause permanent damage and contribute to dementia - a concern in sports like football, where repeated concussions have ended careers and caused premature health problems.
Dr. Stephen J. DeArmond, a neuropathologist at the University of California, San Francisco, is an expert on the brain who also knows a thing or two about ice skating. He took it up at age 47 and collaborated on a 1996 book, "Ice Skating - Steps to Success" (Human Kinetics Publishers), with Karin Kunzle-Watson, a nine-time Swiss national champion. He feels skating is a good, low-impact exercise for older people.
"It strengthens the legs and your hips and core muscles. You put a lot of tension on the bones. It keeps the calcium in the bones and kind of pushes away osteoarthritis, especially in women," he said. He does recommend wearing protective gear, like helmets and pads.
Helmets - I wasn't wearing one - reduce the odds of skull injury but won't prevent the jarring of the brain during a hard blow. The same is true in bicycling or any activity where head injury is possible.
Many serious skating injuries occur early, DeArmond noted, when novices haven't learned how to fall: Bend the knees, lean slightly forward and, if all else fails, aim to land on your side. Take it from me - that's a lot to remember when you're new at it.
Falls happen even to the best skaters. Dick Button, the Olympic champion and TV commentator, fell in 2000 at a rink in New York while attempting an axel jump. Button, then 70, sustained a fractured skull, concussion and blood clots; he developed meningitis, lost hearing in one ear and spent months in rehabilitation.
