Seminar addresses concussion concerns
Franklin Lakes — The borough’s public library hosted a seminar last week to educate parents and coaches about the risks associated with concussions and ways to detect them.
The discussion came on the heels of a move by the Borough Council to enact a policy, proposed by the Recreation and Parks Committee, mandating that all football players in Grades 4-8 take a computerized cognitive baseline test before this season.
The test, called ImPACT, for Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing, measures verbal and visual memory, processing speed and reaction time. The test also is administered to athletes at the regional high schools of Ramapo and Indian Hills, which serve students in Grades 9-12 from the borough, Oakland and Wyckoff.
At the time the policy was approved, officials declared the action a momentous first step in ensuring safety of youth athletes.
“Think of a yolk inside of an egg,” Dr. Lori Catania said, addressing a crowd of about 20 people at the seminar. “The brain and skull don’t move in a coupled fashion, so when there is trauma to the head or body, [the brain] hits the skull.”
More than 33 percent of pediatric concussions are sustained during contact sports, said Catania, who was joined in leading the presentation by Dr. Catherine Mazzola and Steven Mazzola, a trained ImPACT tester, of New Jersey Pediatric Neurosurgical Associates of Morristown.
But, Catania said, not all concussions result in obvious symptoms: Less than 5 percent of concussions lead to loss of consciousness.
Catania warned that symptoms may be latent for days — even weeks — and may include subtle changes in sleeping patterns, concentration or sensitivity to light.
“Many undiagnosed concussions are either the result of a failure to recognize the symptoms or fear of having the athlete benched for an extended time,” Catania said.
According to the doctors, if a concussion is undetected, the athlete who sustained it is at a greater risk of sustaining a subsequent concussion. That athlete could develop Second Impact Syndrome, a potentially fatal condition.
To avoid this risk, the doctors advised that an athlete who sustained a concussion not return to play until he or she has been asymptomatic for at least two weeks, has received medical clearance from a pediatrician and has scored within 5 percentile points of his or her baseline ImPACT test.