Barrington Ahead of the Game for Concussion Guidelines

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, concussions account for 10 percent of all high school sports injuries, and there are more than 300,000 sports-related concussions reported annually. 

Sports medicine has made considerable advancements, especially in the area of head traumas, so it appears that with all the media attention that sport’s concussions have become a new injury. In reality, sports concussions have been around for as long as man has played sports. 

The latest increase in concussion diagnosis stems from a greater understanding of concussions and symptom identification combined with better testing techniques all of which have helped push what seems to be a growing epidemic of brain injuries to the front of the line.

At every level, school officials are trying to change the sports injury that is having a lasting and adverse effect on the students who participate. The Illinois High School Association, being led by the National Federation of State High School Associations is taking steps to change its policy and language regarding when students will be eligible to return to the field. However, Barrington won’t be making alterations to its procedures.

“We have been ahead of the curve when it comes to the handling of potential concussions,” said Mike Obsuszt, Barrington High School athletic director. 

Now it seems the rest of the state is ready to catch up.

“This is an important policy for the health and safety of high school student-athletes in Illinois,” Kurt Gibson, IHSA associate executive director and sports medicine chair, said in a press release.

“The old concussion policy language only indicates what must be done for a student-athlete to return to a contest after being removed for a concussion or suspected concussion on the day of the contest,” Gibson went on to say.  “The new policy clarifies the action that must be taken for a student-athlete to return to play in the days, weeks or months that follow after they are diagnosed to have suffered a concussion.”

Under the new NFHS policies adopted before the 2010-11 season, once an athlete exhibits any symptoms of a concussion – loss of consciousness, headaches, dizziness, confusion, balance problems, etc. – the athlete immediately must be removed from the activity and cannot return until cleared by an appropriate health care professional.

The state has determined that only certified athletic trainers and physicians licensed in Illinois can clear an athlete to return to action on the day the athlete had been removed from the contest. In instances where the participant was not cleared to return to play on the same day of the possible head injury, the athlete will not be allowed to return to competition or practice until evaluated by and given written permission from an Illinois-licensed physician.

Barrington varsity football coach Joe Sanchez credited the district’s training staff, head athletic trainer Kevin Stalsberg and Dr. Dan Di Iorio, Barrington High School’s primary sports physician, with keeping the district ahead of the curve on the concussion issue.

“These are guidelines already in place that we have been abiding by, and probably won’t impact anything we are doing,” Sanchez said.

ImPACT Testing

Since 2007, Barrington has required students to get clearance from a certified trainer or doctor prior to returning to the field in conjunction with the administered ImPACT test.  The ImPACT test is a computer program that is used to determine a student’s baseline performance on a series of neurocognitive questions prior to starting an activity, and Stalsberg is then able to more closely monitor the athletes and their head traumas by comparing results after an injury. 

“The questions assess a wide range of neurocognitive functions,” Stalsberg said of the program that records students’ results for counting backwards, memory recall, word recognition, etc. “Unless it was a severe concussion, a regular CAT scan or MRI, which only really looks at structure, may come back as negative for concussion, while the ImPACT test may show different results.”

Stalsberg and his team take concussions in every sport seriously and eliminate the potential of artificial baselines by relying on other factors when determining if a student should return. The concern is not only for the devastating effects the traumas have on the brain, but also because concussions can be fatal in rare instances, such as with second-impact syndrome, when the victim suffers another concussion before the damage from the first has healed.

“We try to get every student that is at a high risk for collisions, or contact, to participate,” Stalsberg said of the tests administered not just for football, but for other sports such as softball, water polo, soccer, basketball, baseball and even diving. “The test has a number of ways to invalidate a baseline, and anyone with an invalid score will need to retake the test.

“But we don’t just rely on the ImPACT test,” Stalsberg went on to say.  “We take a look at other symptoms to make sure the athlete is ready to return.”

With athlete safety paramount, the IHSA, in conjunction with the Northwestern Memorial HealthCare and Northwestern University Feinberg School, will host a free seminar. Chicago football Hall of Famer Dan Hampton will be the keynote speaker for the symposium and is joined by:

• Hunt Batjer, Northwestern’s chair of neurological surgery and the co-chair of the National Football League’s Head, Neck and Spine Committee;
• IHSA Executive Director Martin Hickman;
• Former Chicago Bear and current high school football coach Kurt Becker. 

The expert panel will provide parents, school coaches and officials with the necessary facts about the growing problem of concussions. 

For more information about the free seminar visit, www.northwesternmedicine.org/playingitsafe or IHSA.