Five Questions With: William T. White

"Our sports-concussion mission champions youth to safely play all sports."

William T. White is a clinician-scientist and president of Brain In Play Nonprofit Foundation and the company Brain In Play International Inc., which are both dedicated to preventing, healing and improving sports concussive injuries and degenerative brain diseases, mainly Alzheimer’s. He is also the author of Winning the War Against Concussions in Youth Sports. For 20 years, White was COO and chief nursing officer at Bradley Hospital, the nation’s first brain/behavioral health hospital for youth, while maintaining a clinical practice, raising children and caring for a parents with Alzheimer’s disease at home. He co-originated Brain Performance Enhancement, a brain wellness therapeutic system based in part on the latest neuroscience, from which his company’s interventions for preventing/improving dementias youth sports concussions were excerpted. Here he discusses the work of the foundation.

PBN: The Brain in Play Foundation registered with the state as a nonprofit in April, has 501c3 status pending, and is a direct outgrowth of Brain in Play International Inc. How will the two relate?
WHITE:
The organizations are inextricably linked. The foundation promotes awareness about the company’s dual vision: saving youth athlete brains by preventing and healing sports concussions and saving adult brains by preventing and improving dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease.
The foundation also facilitates patient and family access to the company’s patent-pending brain wellness systems to avert and best heal concussions and dementias. They are called Brain Performance Enhancement ‘Fast-Tracks’ for youth and adults/seniors, respectively. The foundation also funds access to our game-changing new book about sports concussions written for players, parents and coaches and supports pilot clinical research projects for Alzheimer’s disease.

PBN: Tell us a little more about each mission and why you’re addressing both.
WHITE:
Our sports-concussion mission champions youth to safely play all sports. Our dementia and Alzheimer’s disease mission is enabled by the wellness system’s evidence-based protocols and therapies, which optimize the functioning, preservation and growth of brain cells.
We are addressing both conditions because the prevalence of each is skyrocketing, and both have been deemed a public health crisis by the Institute of Medicine and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We believe our innovative brain/body wellness approach will help improve the care and lower the incidence of both – and most importantly, reduce patient and family suffering. We are privileged to be advised by a group of thought leading doctors, including neurologists, who continuously remind us there is nothing more important than brain health.

PBN: What are the advantages of basing the foundation in Warwick?
WHITE
: We are excited that Rhode Island’s new governor [Gina M. Raimondo] is aggressively addressing healthcare reform and has chartered a healthcare working group. Rhode Island has some innovative healthcare leaders and many successful companies with which to partner, which is key when your foundation’s brain health value proposition is leading-edge and your vision is global.
Warwick’s Mayor Scott Avedisian is a long-term proponent of health and wellness innovation. Warwick has supportive state representatives, is centrally located and our new office building is five minutes from the airport and train station. Also, the state boasts a great division of Parks & Recreation with which we are already partnered, giving us access to all 39 cities’ and towns’ youth, parent and senior populations.

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PBN: The foundation is developing several other programs that will debut this summer or fall. Tell us about some of them.
WHITE
: Our Top Ten Campaign launches in August – with a goal to partner with 10 top Rhode Island companies and/or community-leaders who want to help save youth brains in sports, and/or help prevent or ameliorate Alzheimer’s disease. We will invite philanthropists, retailers, banks, car dealers, sports-leaders, health corporations, food markets and others to help jumpstart our foundation’s critical awareness and pilot research efforts.
This summer we move to new and expanded clinical space for treating both conditions. On Aug. 1, we’ll be at 33 College Hill Road, Building 31-C, Warwick, 401-615-8775, to advance the global spread of our brain-wellness book.
We also welcome Tufts Medical School and St. Elizabeth Hospital’s sports safety physician Dr. Al Ashare, who will direct the enterprise. He also chairs USA Hockey’s National Safety Committee, is president of the Hockey Equipment Certification Council and medically directs Massachusetts’ interscholastic sports.

PBN: What type of pilot research does the foundation anticipate supporting?
WHITE
: The first pilot research projects will focus on Alzheimer’s disease. On July 23, research presented at the Alzheimer’s Disease Association’s International Conference on a brain wellness system similar to ours found significant cognitive improvement and enlargement of the brain’s memory/learning center following 12 weeks of treatment in seniors diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment.
Since our company’s wellness program combines specific behavioral protocols and therapies that improve brain cell functioning and growth, we will offer this clinical innovation at our outpatient office and at select Rhode Island assisted living communities. The work is associated with pilot studies that document efficacy. Medscape recently announced that in the baby-boomer population, Alzheimer’s disease may double in prevalence between 2015 and 2040 – making the need to prioritize research long overdue.

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