SEC Seminar Teaches Athletes to Use Their Heads

BLOOMFIELD—The annual Super Essex Conference Sportsmanship Summit Thursday morning at Bloomfield High School had an additional serious message for the 500 student-athletes who attended: the severity of concussions.

Dr. Jill Brooks, a clinical neuropsychologist from Bernardsville, and Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr., who represents New Jersey's eighth district, were among the speakers who raised further awareness of head injuries in sports.

Pascrell said there were as many as 3.8 million concussions related to athletics reported nationwide last year and 41 percent of those injured returned to the playing field too soon.

"Concussions are nearly invisible, but devastating," Pascrell said. "They are nothing to play around with."

Each athlete was asked to fill out questionnaires, testing the students' knowledge of the risks and impact of head injuries.

The questions included: Is a concussion a brain injury? Can a concussion change your life? Have you ever hid symptoms of a concussion from a coach, teammate or parents?

"It was somewhat helpful and we can benefit from it," said Melissa Kuscin, a soon-to-be senior member of the West Essex girls soccer team. "I know we've had somebody on the team that have had concussions and multiple concussions, so this is definitely helpful."

Pascrell also discussed the case of Montclair High football player Ryne Dougherty, who suffered a brain hemorrhage on Oct. 15, 2008—two days after enduring a third head injury in a month.

Pascrell introduced last year the Concussion Treatment and Care Tools (ConTACT) Act, which is scheduled for a hearing next month, that is designed to establish guidelines for diagnosing concussions in middle and high school athletes. 

"Trust me, no long-term consequence is worth it," Pascrell said. "There was a lady at Marlboro High School who's had 11 concussions playing sports. She went to Washington to testify at a hearing. She'll never be able to play sports again."

The audience was comprised mostly of seniors and team captains. Brooks followed Pascrell's presentation and asked the audience how many have suffered concussions. Many hands, including Pascrell's, were raised. The amount of athletes who suffered multiple concussions was less, but still a significant amount.

"Fifty percent of people who have a second impact die," Brooks pointed out.

"Not all symptoms occur immediately, some come 10 to 12 hours later, some five to seven days after," she added. "In many cases, people don't recover completely."

Caldwell High boys soccer coach Mike Teshkoyan was impressed with the presentation and felt it provided necessary information to coaches and athletes.

"I think it's good for the kids and the coaches to know the severity of the concussion," Teshkoyan said. 

"I think everybody should be involved—parents, parents are the worst ones to say 'get back in there,' and coaches have a penchant for 'you OK?,' kid says 'yes' [and coaches say] 'get back in there.' So the awareness is good. It's a good point of emphasis."

The education is also especially useful since concussion symptoms are sometimes not always extremely noticeable.

"[A concussion] is not detectable like a knee or ankle injury, sometimes it goes by the wayside,'' Caldwell Athletic Director Rich Porfido said.

Approximately 180 New Jersey schools have implemented ImPACT testing for all student-athletes. West Essex will begin the program this year, while Caldwell High and Mount St. Dominic have already begun to use it.

At the beginning of the school year, the 25-minute computerized examination, which was developed five years ago, is administered to measure concentration and reaction time while recording a baseline score of each athlete. Following a head injury, the test is given again and those scores are compared to the baseline to determine if the athlete has fully recovered from the injury.

"I think it's good for the kids and the coaches to know the severity of it," West Essex High girls soccer coach Bryan McNaught said. "They feel good the next day they feel good and get back in there, but the awareness that it's a long-term kind of issue is a good thing."