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Shorecrest adds to its arsenal to protect athletes from effects of concussions
Monday, August 22, 2011
http://www.tampabay.com/hometeam/blog/shorecrest-adds-its-arsenal-protect-athletes-effects-concussions/10336/
Shorecrest adds to its arsenal to protect athletes from effects of concussions
ST. PETERSBURG — A Shorecrest Prep lineman sat woozily on the bench after a hard hit last season. A baseball player was helped off the field after a ball took an awkward bounce and struck him on the head. Two Chargers basketball players fell hard to the court and were knocked out.
All four suffered concussions and were held out of the rest of their respective contests. But there has never been a true medical protocol for clearing high school players to return from concussion injuries. One athlete missed a month. Another returned days later after his symptoms went away.
"For years, it has been an inexact science when dealing with concussions," Shorecrest football coach Phil Hayford said. "You can see a broken bone or tell if someone has a sprained ankle. But you can't really see a brain injury. You just don't know."
Tempering the sport culture's win-now, regret-later ideology, Shorecrest has been at the forefront in dealing with concussions.
Five years ago Shorecrest started purchasing Riddell's Revolution Speed Helmet, which earned a five-star rating in Virginia Tech's eight-year testing regimen to estimate concussion risks. The helmets, which contain extra padding that can be inflated, are designed to reduce the chance of concussions.
And this season, Shorecrest is one of two schools, along with Berkeley Prep, to administer ImPACT (Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing) for all athletes in contact sports.
The test is given before a season to provide a baseline of how athletes' brains, when healthy, perform computer tasks such as memory, reaction time and visual motor skills. Then, when athletes suffer a confirmed or suspected concussion, the test can be administered again. If players score lower than their baseline number, they are considered more susceptible to another concussion.
The test is also given to players in the NFL, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League.
"The test is basically designed for you to fail," Shorecrest trainer Brandy Hannah said. "There are a lot of patterns and colors to determine. Once an athlete shows signs of a concussion, we wait until the symptoms go away before taking the test again. If the symptoms come back, such as headaches or sensitivity to light, then we know that something is wrong."
Shorecrest's booster club spearheaded the effort to obtain the software. The school purchased 300 tests, which will be given to athletes at the high school and middle division. They cost $500 and the funds were provided through a joint effort by the booster club, All Florida Orthopaedic Associates and St. Pete MRI.
"We all want to look after our own kids," Shorecrest booster president Jean Johnston said. "We felt like this was a great idea. It just adds an extra layer of protection."
Dealing with concussions has always been murky. For years, concussions were drastically under reported because many mistakenly thought the injury required the player to be knocked unconscious.
"In the past, you would think a player just had his bell rung," Hayford said. "You might do a finger test to see how many fingers are held up. Or you might put an ice pack on a player's head. No one really knew."
There also has been a code of silence that fueled athletes to play on.
"When you ask a player, most will say they're fine because they want to stay in the game," Hayford said.
Trainers have become more prevalent in the past decade. But they do not have a red flag to challenge whether a player can come out of a game because he or she is showing symptoms of a concussion.
"The brain is the most important part of the body, but the least understood," Hannah said. "It has been hit or miss in that area. It's hard because you're not going to go against what a doctor says.
"This test (ImPACT) takes a lot of the guesswork out of diagnosing concussions."
Several states have passed legislation addressing concussions in high school sports. This summer, the Florida High School Athletic Association put together a concussion action plan that calls for an athlete who shows signs of a concussion to be removed from a contest or practice and not be allowed to return until he or she is cleared by a licensed health-care professional.
But the FHSAA is not ready to make the ImPACT test mandatory for athletes.
"I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future mostly because there is a cost involved," FHSAA senior director of athletics Gary Pigott said. "We don't enforce something like when schools are under tight budgets. But I know some schools and districts are doing it on their own."
There are 56 high schools in the state that use the ImPACT test. Florida Orthopaedic Associates and St. Pete MRI are working to get other Pinellas County schools such as Dixie Hollins, Lakewood or Northeast to use it next year.
"With so much media discussion about concussions these days, I'm surprised it's taken this long for high schools to start using this test," said Dr. Arnold M. Ramirez, who works with All Florida Orthopaedic Associates.
"I know the cost is not cheap. But this is the most useful tool we have. And it's necessary because the younger the athlete, the more vulnerable they are to concussions and there are more consequences."
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