Baseline Concussion Testing is Essential for All Fall Sports

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According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 1.6 to 3.8million sports and recreation related concussions occur each year in the US with high school and youth contact sports making up the largest portion of this number.Following a head injury, parents are often left with very little guidance on what to do.They will often take their child or high school athlete to the emergency room for evaluation.We now know this can be the worst place for someone who sustains a sports-related concussion due to the loud noises, bright lights and overreliance on CT scans due to medical-legal protocols.Comprehensive baseline pre-injury concussion testing can help put parents at ease by comparing pre and post injury data and making recommendations to your pediatrician based on objective data.

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Of course, this approach changes if your athlete presents with any Red Flag signs that warrants immediately medical intervention and a visit to the emergency room.These would include:

• Athlete complains of neck pain
• Increasing confusion or irritability
• Repeated vomiting
• Seizure or convulsion
• Weakness or tingling/burning in arms or legs
• Deteriorating conscious state
• Severe or increasing headache
• Unusual behavior changes
• Double vision

Parents can be prepared to identify signs of concussion in their children and young adults by referencing the Pocket Concussion Recognition Tool readily available on-line.This was developed as part of the Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2013.

Preseason baseline concussion testing has been done at the college and professional sport levels for many years.Now it is available for youth sports and high school athletes and should be done yearly before the season begins to establish a healthy level for balance, oculomotor processing speed and neurocognitive function.These are computerized based tests that establish a pre-injury level of function and can be compared to post head injury levels to see if impairments are present.This can objectively determine a readiness for return to play without jeopardizing the impact of returning to play before truly ready and sustaining a more devasting injury.While your health care practitioner is responsible for diagnosing the concussion, this data can help guide the course of action.Athletes with lingering symptoms are usually referred for post-concussion rehabilitation to help regain their full function and reduce residual symptoms.

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