As many of you know, my graduate work focused on hockey related concussions. For those of you who have followed my blog from day one, you’ll know that my very first post reviewed the developments from the most symposium on concussion in sport. To read my summary, click on this link.

Joe Przytula recently posted some highlights from the Athletic Trainers’ Society of New Jersey’s (ATSNJ) concussion summit of which Dr. Robert Cantu was the keynote speaker. Here are his notes (as taken directly from his blog):

• VERY important the athlete is permitted appropriate time for healing to take place.
• There is no set number of concussions that is a disqualification for further participation in contact sports.
• 2 man wedge tackling, blindside hits rule changes in American football are in order.
• No way to predict CTE in a live person; lawyers should not be driving decision making.
• Concussion accounts for 6-10% of all athletic injuries. The reported ones are just the tip of the iceberg. Subconcussive blows and their effect is an unknown factor.
• Loss of consciousness is not a good indicator of degree of brain injury.
• You don’t need to grade a concussion to manage them efficiently.
• Time to recovery is a good indicator for risk in subsequent concussions.
• When a player shows any symptoms of concussion, they should discontinue participation at least for that day.
• The cornerstone of concussion management is physical and cognitive rest until symptoms resolve.
• Prolonged post concussion syndrome (1m+) is usually associated with playing with a pevious head injury prior to the concussion.
• Concussion Research- Journal of Neural Trauma: http://www.liebertonline.com/toc/neu/27/7
• Many concussions occur at lower force, 60G’s and below. The new NFL helmet recommendations are suspect because they involved testing at higher G’s. Head and spine biomechanist specialists were not used in the study.
• Since every concussion is different, is legislating concussion guidelines a good idea?

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