About Concussion Alliance
Concussion Alliance is a science-based concussion education & advocacy 501(c)3 nonprofit whose mission is to create resources to help everyone impacted by concussions learn how to manage recovery & advocate for proper care–and inform healthcare providers on current best practices.
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The Problem and Our Mission
The Problem
Concussions are the most common form of traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBIs are a public health epidemic and are eight times more common than breast cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and spinal cord injury combined.
Most TBIs worldwide are concussions (~56 million annually); that is 1.77 concussions per second.
15–50% of patients have persisting symptoms for up to a year or longer.
Many doctors don’t know current guidelines for concussion care, and concussion follow-up “is particularly deficient.”
Both patients and providers face barriers to accessing current information about concussion recovery, leaving patients in pain, frustrated, and lost in the healthcare system.
Our Mission
Our mission is to create resources to help everyone impacted by concussions learn how to manage recovery and advocate for proper care–and inform healthcare providers on current best practices.
Over the years, we’ve grown concussionalliance.org to be the most comprehensive website about concussions in the world; we’ve had 600,000 website visitors to date.
Our Vision
We want to build a world where concussions are rare, the public knows the proper steps for recovery, and those with persistent symptoms get timely and appropriate treatment from knowledgeable providers.
We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN #93-4965531.
Please read our 2024 Annual Impact Report.
Our Programs
Education and resources for patients and advocates
ConcussionAlliance.org is the most comprehensive, evidence-based concussion resource for patients and advocates online. It provides in-depth information about concussions, treatment options, search tools to find providers, and community-specific information for veterans, college students, women & girls, and more.
We base our resources on the most recent research and evidence-based guidelines. Our Expert Advisory Board is composed of nationally and internationally respected professionals.
Our biweekly Concussion Update newsletter provides thoughtful synopses of new research, news related to concussions, opportunities for free online classes and workshops, and notification of opportunities to participate in research. Approximately two-thirds of our subscribers are patients and advocates.
Educating healthcare providers
We have created a Continuing Medical Education (CME), A Patient-Centered Approach to Concussion Care for Emergency Medicine and Primary Care Physicians. The learning activity is free and has two formats: a 1-hour credit CME (continuing medical education) and a free webinar for non-physicians.
The CME and webinar cover diagnosis, discharge, referral, and obstacles to proper care faced by both patients and providers – as well as a patient perspective from our Co-founder Conor Gormally.
Our biweekly Concussion Update newsletter provides thoughtful synopses of new research; about one-third of our subscribers are healthcare providers.
Internship program for undergraduates (plus PhD and medical school students)
Our mission includes training the next generation of healthcare and public health professionals through our Concussion Education & Advocacy Internship Program.
Our summer internship program (8 weeks) and our December internship program (3 weeks) provide a professional experience for the next generation of researchers, advocates, healthcare providers, and policymakers.
Supporting concussion research
We work with multiple research groups by
promoting research calls for study participants
referring patients directly to clinical trials
writing Letters of Support for research groups applying for grants
participating in research design committees as patient advocates
We promote research calls for study participants at the top of our Concussion Update Newsletter in the Opportunities section. We have over 3,300 subscribers to our newsletter.
Click here to see a list of the distinguished researchers we work with at research institutions across the country.
Our Team
Board
Staff
Leadership Volunteers
Expert Advisory Board
Volunteer Team
Volunteers write for the biweekly Concussion Update newsletter, write blog posts, help us with social media, and do graphic design.
Longer-term internships and Practicums
Hannah Nash
Hannah Nash recently graduated from the University of Washington, where she studied Human Centered Design and Engineering. She served as a Program Manager Intern for the Summer 2023 Concussion Education & Advocacy Internship Program. For the Winter & Spring 2024 quarters, Hannah participated in a two-quarter, for-credit internship with Concussion Alliance; she is currently creating a Program Manager Handbook for the Summer 2024 Internship Program.
Melissa Sodko, MPH, RHIT
Melissa Sodko completed her Masters of Public Health practicum with Concussion Alliance in 2022-2023 while attending Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. During her practicum internship, Melissa contributed to the development of the Concussion Alliance Return-to-Learn Strategy for College Students (part of our College Students Resource), including researching and writing some of the protocol. Melissa wrote press releases for Concussion Alliance, wrote synopses for the Concussion Update Newsletter, and facilitated the review for accuracy of our Vision Therapy resource. Melissa currently works for Abbott.
Research Affiliations
We work with multiple research groups by
promoting research calls for study participants
referring patients directly to clinical trials
writing Letters of Support for research groups applying for grants
participating in research design committees as patient advocates
We promote research calls for study participants at the top of our Concussion Update Newsletter in the Opportunities section. We have over 3,300 subscribers to our newsletter.
Research teams and studies we work with
The NEW–HOPE–TBI study, a multicenter collaboration between the University of Washington BRaIN Lab (Seattle, WA), the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, NY), the University of California San Francisco (San Francisco, CA), and Massachusets General Hospital (Boston, MA).
Concussion Alliance is part of the study’s Community-Based Participatory Research team. We provided a Letter of Support that was part of the successful application for an NIH grant. We are participating by giving input on study design and recruiting study participants.
The Late Effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (LETBI) project at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
We are assisting with the LETBI study, a long-term research project by a renowned team at the Brain Injury Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY. We are promoting their call for study participants via the Opportunities section of our Concussion Update Newsletter.
Military Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative (MTBI²), formerly Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine (CNRM)
The Military Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative (MTBI²) is part of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, MD. In the past, we’ve helped recruit study participants for “A Randomized, Controlled, Blinded Study of Internet-guided Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia in Military Service Members with History of Traumatic Brain Injury.” We have also recruited study participants for their “Remote Research Trial of a New Digital Therapeutic Mobile App for post-concussion depression.
"Working in collaboration with Concussion Alliance has been exceptional. Malayka and Conor Gormally are passionate about mTBI research and it shows. Our study team utilized the Concussion Alliance newsletters to reach more potential study participants for various Digital Therapeutics (DTx) clinical trials. Our team values the relationship with Concussion Alliance and is proud to support a nonprofit organization that works tirelessly to facilitate awareness of concussions, persistent post-concussion symptoms, and enhance treatment feasbilty options for both civilians and military service members alike."
~ David L. Brody, MD PhD, Professor of Neurology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS), Chief Scientific Officer / Chief Innovation Officer (CSO/CIO), Military Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative (MTBI2)
Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
We promoted a call for study participants for research by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, focusing on a program to help optimize concussion recovery over four 45-minute virtual sessions.
University of Washington Biorepository and Integrated Neuropathology (BRaIN) Laboratory
We have written Letters of Support for BRaIN lab applications for NIH grants and state-based TBI funding. Drs. Dirk Keene and Nolan are regular Expert Guest Speakers for our Concussion Education and Advocacy Internship Program.
Florida Atlantic University’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing sponsored “Mind Over Matter” (M.O.M.) project, an initiative of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
We wrote a Letter of Support for the research team’s application for PCORI funding, which was successful. We then worked as a collaborative partner helping with study design for the team’s PCORI-funded project, “Mind Over Matter: A Veteran-driven Roadmap to Research on Traumatic Brain Injury (M.O.M.).” The goal of the (M.O.M.) project is to “bolster patient-centered outcomes research and comparative effectiveness research in order to identify treatment options for TBI that are effective, acceptable, and meaningful to the veteran population.” Read more here, and see the press release here.
CARF International
Concussion Alliance participated in the field review of the concussion program standards for the CARF Concussion Rehabilitation Program. From the CARF press release: “More than 270 stakeholders provided feedback to create the first international best-practice framework. CARF International has developed the first interdisciplinary, field-driven standards of its kind for Concussion Rehabilitation Programs, which will be released in January 2024. “
VA Boston Healthcare System
We recruited a significant percentage of the study participants for a clinical trial, “Light-emitting Diode (LED) Research Project to improve memory and thinking in people who have suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI).” Read our blog post to learn more.
University of Utah, TBI and Concussion Center and the Department of Neurology
We are assisting with the recruitment of study participants for their ongoing clinical trials. See our blog post with an interview of one of the study participants. “Photobiomodulation Therapy to Improve Brain Health and Resiliency, A Pilot Study.”
University of Maine: Brain Injury, Education, and Rehabilitation Lab
We have promoted multiple calls for study participants for research by the Brain Injury, Education, and Rehabilitation Lab at the University of Maine.
VA Portland Health Care System and Department of Neurology, Oregon Health & Science University
We helped recruit for the clinical trial, “Improving sleep, sleep-related outcomes, and biomarkers in Veterans.” See our blog post recruiting study participants.
NIH-funded Epilepsy Research Program with the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command and the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP)
We promoted a call for study participants for the NIH-funded Epilepsy Research Program to better understand the incidence of post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) following a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to improve patient care and outcomes.
Our Story
Mother and son team Malayka Gormally and Conor Gormally founded Concussion Alliance when they experienced how difficult it is for concussion patients and advocates to navigate a path forward with concussion treatment options.