Trustee wants to see new concussion safety program
By KEITH DEMPSEY ROBERT KIRWAN, FOR THE SUDBURY STAR
Posted 3 hours ago
Robert Kirwan wants a concussion safety program for all secondary school athletes.
The program would be for athletes who participate on school teams where there is a possibility of head injury — specifically, hockey, football, basketball and soccer.
At a meeting of the Rainbow District School Board on Tuesday, Kirwan, a Rainbow District School Board trustee for Area 3, will be recommending that a pilot concussion safety program to be put into place in time for the 2011-12 high school hockey season.
The concussion safety program being used by the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League is centered around a pre-competition baseline evaluation called Immediate Post- Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT).
ImPACT is a computer-based
battery of tests developed specifically for assessing sport-related concussions.
The computer program measures multiple aspects of cognitive functioning, including attention span, working memory, sustained and selective attention time, response variability, and several facets of verbal/visual memory.
When a student-athlete is injured with a suspected concussion, a post-injury test is done and compared to the baseline results.
The discrepancy in the two tests will help a student’s family doctor determine the severity of the concussion and thus be in a better position to recommend an appropriate recovery program.
“The whole incident with Sidney Crosby should have got a lot of people thinking on concussions,” Kirwan said. “His injury was the tipping point for concussion awareness in sports. What’s really frightening is that doctors can’t tell if people have concussions.
“If the person says they have dizziness or headaches, then they know but if the MRI test and cat scans show nothing, all the doctor can say is that everything is fine.”
“When you do the test before the season starts, you develop a score. The score will be different if you do it after or during a concussion,” Kirwan said. “If there is something going on in the brain, the score will be lower, so if a person gets injured with a head shot, regardless if he says he’s OK, we should go on the side of caution. The test within 24-48 hours, if the test shows it’s something, the coach can keep them out of the game. It’s not a perfect science, but the doctor will be able to tell if the player has something wrong.”
The Concussion Safety Program would require that the entire coaching staff become trained in order to be qualified to administer the imPACT test and recognize the typical signs and symptoms of concussion.
This includes having all players take the baseline test prior to tryouts; having all players, coaches and parents of players complete a special live or online presentation on concussion safety; and having the coaching staff and players participate in an on-ice clinic on how to take precautions in order to protect against situations where the head may be vulnerable under game conditions.
Players who are removed from action because of a suspected head injury would not be permitted back into competition until they receive written clearance from a medical practitioner, written clearance from their parent/guardian, and they are able to get their post-injury imPACT test scores back up to a level comparable to their baseline test scores.
The new Concussion Safety Program would be consistent with the current Physical Education Safety Guidelines in place for competition under the Sudbury District Secondary School Athletic Association.
The cost of the Concussion Safety Program would be $500 per school, for 300 baseline tests and 120 post tests.
“When I was growing up, we didn’t know about all of these things,” Kirwan said. “The cost is so low that if the tool is there, then let’s use it.
“Let’s not ignore it and go by our old ways. In high school sports or any other competitive sports, we all know that when you have someone that’s eager and passionate to get back out to play after sustaining an injury, they’ll say nothing is wrong just so they can get back to playing as soon as possible.”
Twitter: @keith_dempsey
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