Baseline Analysis Paper

Every year thousands of athletes are effected by the sports-related concussions. There are three types of concussions, they are classified as grades which is a special term medical professionals use to classify the severity of a traumatic brain injury. Grade 1 concussions are minute in terms of the severity of damage to the athlete’s brain. This is when there are in a brief daze, slight headache, and their head sometimes rings. (Cunha 581-585). The grade 2 concussions are the moderate concussions were an athlete completely fades to black, there’s no seeing anything, and they don’t know their location, name and various other important pieces of information (Cunha 581-585). Last, we have the grade 3 concussion which is the most severe, and

Research shows that half of the admitted patients in emergency centers experience complications several months, even years, after the initial injury (“Psychological Sequelae: Postconcussion, Frontal and Temporal Lobe Syndromes”. 2012.). In some cases, patients complain of periodic headaches for up to a year, depression, and comprehension issues. Rather than allowing for athletes to return to physical activity after two to three weeks, they need in-depth evaluations of their brains and tests ran to ensure their brain is functioning

Depending on the sport and the age of the athlete, rules of the game have changed to protect the athlete from concussions, the development of concussion assessment tools, implementation and development of equipment to monitor the athlete on and the off the field. Heightened awareness of the short term and long-term effects of concussions and the dangers involved in returning an athlete to competition too soon. Athletic Trainers along with the sports medicine physicians are essential in educating athletes, coaches and parents about the signs and symptoms associated with concussions and provide pertinent guidelines and risks of playing while still concussed. Some schools have opted to provide and require all athletes to take a computer-based neurocognitive test or baseline concussion test before participating in their sport to set up a baseline and if a concussion does occur, they can compare the results and determine if the athlete is still concussed or symptomatic or is eligible to compete in their sport. The benefit of the test is the athlete can test multiple times in post concussion recovery until they are symptom free, or if there are delayed signs or concerns

The purpose of this study was to determine the association between having a previous concussion and then experiencing concussive signs and symptoms following head impacts. It was hypothesized that previously concussed athletes would have more severe and frequent signs and symptoms of a concussion following a head impact compared to athletes with no previous concussion. To test this hypothesis, 201 college athletes participated in a questionnaire. They were asked about previous concussions and if they experience concussive signs and symptoms when they had head impacts. After the results were all collected, it showed that nearly 60% of athletes who had zero previous concussions reports experiences signs and symptoms following head impacts! compared to nearly 80% of athletes who have had a concussion. These results show a significant correspondence between previous history of concussion and the reoccurrence of concussive signs and symptoms following a head

Did you know, that someone suffers from a brain injury every 21 seconds (Haas)? Children get concussions all the time, and most of the time they go unnoticed. The majority of concussions happen when one is playing a sport such as football, hockey, or lacrosse. Many famous athletes have had their careers, even their lives cut short due to concussions. Brain damage and death can result from serial concussions (Schafer). When one suffers from a concussion, one’s brain needs time to recover physically and mentally. Between 2002 and 2006, statistics showed that 52,000 people died from concussions and about 275,000 were hospitalized (Fundukian). Everyone’s recovery process is different (“Injury and

Concussions or mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI) are the most common forms of traumatic brain injury. There are between 1.6 and 3.8 million concussions a year that occur due to sports and recreation accidents alone (CDC). Mild concussions and MTBIs were once thought to be insignificant in terms of consequences. However, there now is significant evidence that neurological even with what is thought to be a mild injury, physiological, and cognitive changes can occur. Individuals sustaining mild brain injuries often report an assortment of physical, cognitive, and emotional/behavioral symptoms referred to as post concussion syndrome (PCS). There are many symptoms associated with PCS, but these symptoms are often mistaken as behavior, mood, and/or adjustment disorders.

Overall, this article explores the connection between youth concussions and long term degeneration of cognition and motor skills. Athletes who were concussed as late-teens have a high rate of Alzheimer’s and cognition impairments, as early as 30 years after the concussion. Two groups were compared, one who had sustained concussions at this late teen stage, and those who had never been concussed. Various neurological tests were conducted such as the Mini-Mental State Examination, and the Rey-Osterreith Complex Rigure Test, along with a test for motor skills. The MMSE test found no substantial differences between the two groups. However, the concussed group scored lower on the RCFT test, and a lower response time in the motor skills test. They

The purpose of the study is to bring awareness about the seriousness of concussion injuries. Examining the severity of high school athletes who suffered sport related concussions is critical to determine the short term/long term damaging effects. When athletes’ concussions go undiagnosed, the risk of further damages increases since they are not fully recovered. This means that athletes will return to participation unknowingly since the injury goes undetected. In addition, when parents, coaches, doctors, and athletes are aware about the dangers of concussions, they can have a conversation and discuss the best options to ensure the safety of athletes. This means that injured athletes will not be allowed to participate under any

The factor that adds importance to the research being done on sports related concussions is large numbers of young athletes competing in contact sports with high risk of injury.

With the incorporation of a wide variety of testing techniques and tools, such as the PCSS, SAC, computerized neurocognitive battery and much more, this type of baseline testing is able to examine and cover a wide basis of neurological deficits that an athlete may experience after the event of a concussion. In addition, in an area where one baseline testing lacks or has disadvantages in, another incorporated type of baseline testing can essentially make up for such incapacity, thus providing a more comprehensive evaluation of the athlete. Such thoughts are echoed in the research article, “National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Athletic Trainers’ Concussion- Management Practice Patterns,” in which multifaceted testing is said to have “each component resolves independently,” deterring the “overreliance on any individual assessment tool [that] may inappropriately either fail to identify the presence of a concussion or allow premature return to participation” (Kelly et al). Overall, multifaceted baseline testing provides a thorough evaluation of an injured athlete, allowing for better and more appropriate treatment

The purpose of this article is to present both the theoretical and clinical foundations and procedures for pre- and post-concussion management used by a university-based interdisciplinary team coordinated by speech-language pathology. The Miami University Concussion Management Program is one of the oldest university-based concussion programs in the United States and one of the few where the neurobehavioral and neurocognitive management is coordinated by speech-language pathology. This article starts off by giving us a definition of a sport related concussion, which is defined as a traumatically induced brain injury caused by contact with an opponent, a teammate, the ground, or an object in the playing area. It goes on to talk about how research

Athletes are required to take a baseline testing on concussion assessment measures to allow them to have a “normal” level to refer back towards (Guskiewicz, 2004). These baseline tests will help identify abnormalities caused by injuries and post injury recovery. Baseline testing is starting to become required for almost all athletes because the brain is a very sensitive part of the body and needs to be monitored for the athlete’s safety. Examinations by methods of testing are done at the beginning of the season and they help to clinically assess functions such as memory, concentration and balance that can be affected by a concussion(Bradley, 2013). These are tests that are done by the athlete’s personal trainer, if the personal trainer

The HVLT-R has been shown to predict whether an individual will make a full recovery or develop post-concussive syndrome (Lezak, 2004), and low scores on the BVMT-R have been associated with cerebral impairments such as those seen in Alzheimer’s and dementia (Strauss, Sherman, & Spreen, 2006). Both the TMT and the COWAT have been found to be highly sensitive to brain dysfunction (Strauss et al., 2006). Digit Span Forward performance has been shown to be inversely related to the number of sustained concussions in soccer players (Matser, Kessels, Lezak, Jordan, & Troost, 1999), and Digit Span Backward performance is particularly sensitive to brain damage to the left hemisphere (Lezak,

A concussion management model provides a medically recognized assessment system that is used as part of overall concussion management protocol. In 2001, the Concussion in Sport Group recommended that neurocognitive testing is one of the “cornerstones” in concussion management (Solomon, 2014). Neurocognitive, or neuropsychological, testing is considered the core of concussion management models, determining return-to-play and managing the recovery of the athlete (Duff, 2009). Neurocognitive tests are computerized and have replaced the traditional paper-and-pencil neurocognitive tests that were previously used in concussion management. The Immediate Post Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) tool is a neurocognitive test that was developed in the early 1990’s for

In the United States, there are between 1.6-3.8 million sports-related concussions a year, and half go unreported. The term concussion and mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) are interchangeable, referring to a bio-mechanically induced alteration of the brain function that impacts orientation and memory. This study focuses on the impact of a sports-related concussion on academic performance. The 24 athlete participants were between the ages of 14 to 26 years, and all had sustained a concussion with symptoms lasting at least 2 months, and having a detrimental impact on school performance.