High annual concussion count calls for safety
For the Chronicle
July 16, 2011, 11:29PM
Cartoonist Steve Moore has devoted plenty of ink to lampooning everything associated with athletic training in his nationally syndicated comic In the Bleachers.
But even he admitted questioning whether to make light of concussions during his keynote address this week at the Southwest Athletic Trainers Association's 57th meeting at the Westin Galleria.
Of course, he still does it.
The cartoon he brought featured a machine that sucks concussions out of an athlete's head, and it's funny. But his hesitation underscores the seriousness of the issue. That goes double for high school athletes, whose brains still are developing.
"If a youngster sprains his ankle, the parents, coaches and the youngsters themselves can see the swelling, they can see the limping, the fact that they're on crutches and so forth, so they can follow the injury and understand the concept," said Bucky Taylor, an athletic trainer for Mesquite ISD. "But you can't put the brain on crutches."
Protecting the youth
To help protect athletes, Taylor and Dennis Hart, a part-time athletic trainer for Mesquite ISD, helped develop a bill dealing with concussions.
The bill, House Bill 2038, authored by Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo, establishes a three-step process for dealing with concussions in student-athletes statewide.
It was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry last month and takes effect Sept. 1, just in time for the upcoming high school football season.
The bill, dubbed Natasha's Law, calls for state-mandated education for all parties, removal from play of athletes suspected with a concussion, and guidelines for return to activity.
"A concussion is an injury to the brain, one of our most vital organs, and when a youngster sustains a concussion there's a great chance that they'll have a second and a third one, and if they haven't fully recovered — and this is a key point - from the initial concussion, and they're allowed to return to play while they're still symptomatic, incidents of a catastrophic brain injury are high, and that's what we're trying to prevent," Taylor said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 300,000 mild traumatic brain injuries, or concussions, occur annually in the United States as a result of participation in sports.
The Sports Concussion Institute estimates 10 percent of athletes in contact sports suffer a concussion during a season, and a 2006 report estimated there are 92,000 cases of concussion in high school sports yearly.
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