Specialist on concussion testing: 'This is important'

Cobb County high schools will have the option to test all their athletes for concussions for the 2011-12 athletic seasons thanks to WellStar Health System.

WellStar is paying for more than 8,000 high school athletes to have an Immediate Post-Concussive Assessment and Cognitive test, or ImPACT test, which measures cognitive abilities after a concussion. The 20-minute online test measures abilities such as attention span, working memory, sustained and selective attention time, and reaction time to create a baseline for a student athlete’s brain function.

Athletes will be given an initial baseline test at the beginning of the year. Should an athlete receive a concussion during the season, he or she will be tested again. The score from that test will then be compared to the baseline score to help determine when the student is ready to return to the playing field.  

WellStar is paying about $10,000 to test the athletes at the school’s discretion.

“They’ll all be able to be tested,” said Steve Jones, Cobb Schools athletic director during a press conference Thursday at . “WellStar is providing the funding for all the schools to test as many athletes as they think is appropriate. The question is, do you test the tennis players? Tennis players don’t usually have concussions.”

Jones explained that athletes who play high impact sports like football, basketball, soccer and lacrosse will definitely be tested, but individual schools will have to decide whether to test athletes who participate in low or no-impact sports like swimming or track and field.

Harrison High School in Kennesaw began ImPACT testing its athletes last year, said Adam Freeman, HHS athletic trainer. HHS tested the football, lacrosse and soccer teams in addition to the cheerleading squad. 

Freeman estimated that about 15 or 20 HHS varsity athletes, between 5 and 10 percent, sustained concussions last year. 

HHS was able to test its athletes through a relationship with Dr. Mark Brown, a specialist from the Concussion Center of North Atlanta in Woodstock.

“At that point it was like, ‘hey just test as many people as you can,”’ Freeman said. “Doctor Brown was like, ‘I’ll pick up the tab for however many people you test.’ So I just ran with it and we tested all our football kids. I think it wasn’t two days after we tested all the people that we had a kid who started showing symptoms.”

After the success at Harrison and a few other Cobb high schools, Brown looked to broaden the effort.

“He kind of was petitioning WellStar to get involved,” Freeman said. “He kind of spearheaded the relationship. We wouldn’t be here to today if not for his efforts to get with WellStar to say, ‘Hey, this is important. It’s a big thing. This is your community.’ He was a real proponent for that.”

Freeman explained that while there are many benefits to ImPACT testing, one important affect was a heightened awareness of concussive symptoms among parents.

“The most important thing is as soon as it happens getting in touch with the parents, explaining to them what has just occurred, giving them some information about what they need to look for,” Freeman said.  “Because a lot of times the impact happens, the kid seems fine and it’s five or six, seven, eight hours, it’s the middle of the night and symptoms either get worse or new symptoms appear.”

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in 2007 found that U.S. emergency rooms treat 135,000 traumatic brain injuries, including concussions, suffered by 5- to 18-year-olds in sports and recreational activities each year. An untreated concussion can lead to long-term brain problems, including death.

For Jackie Lyons, the ImPACT test gave her peace of mind. Her son David took a hard hit this season while playing lacrosse at Harrison. Lyons and the coaching staff feared it had caused a concussion.

“When he actually gave the hit and there was an impact and his helmet came down we were worried that it potentially was a concussion,” Lyons said. “It was such an enormous relief to know that he had taken that baseline test. The torment as a mother, how am I going to judge this or who am I going to believe, and having that was just a huge relief.”

David is graduating Friday and will attend Berry College next year and play lacrosse.

To hear more from the CDC about concussions and sports, click  here,  here and here.