Student Athletes to Get Concussion Testing

All 8,000-plus athletes at Cobb County high schools will receive preseason brain tests next school year to measure their recovery in the event of a concussion.

The computerized Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing 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.

If an athlete suffers a concussion, he or she will go through ImPACT again, and the results will be compared with the baseline findings to determine when it’s safe for the athlete to compete again.

“We haven't had an effective means of determining when an athlete who suffers a concussion is safe to return to competition,” Steve Jones, the Cobb County School District’s athletic director, said in the news release from WellStar. “These tests will provide a benchmark to help us make that determination more accurately.”

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.

“Even at the high school level, concussions are a common occurrence in competitive sports, and we are still learning about their serious effects,” Jones said.

The CDC launched its Heads Up initiative in 2007 to draw attention to the problem of concussions and other head injuries in high school and youth sports. The problem of sports concussions has gained increasing attention at the pro and college levels the past couple of years, but the CDC says teen brains are at greater risk and take longer to recover.

The Georgia High School Association has made concussion awareness a point of emphasis for its officials.

“By providing these tests to area student athletes, we are putting the right tools in the hands of the physicians, parents, athletic trainers and coaches to help determine when it is safe for a student athlete to return to both limited and full-contact activities,” WellStar spokesman Keith Bowermaster said in a statement.

ImPACT takes 20 minutes to administer and can be done by an athletic trainer, a school nurse, a team doctor, a coach and others.

WellStar will finance the testing of athletes in all sports, including cheerleaders, not just high-impact sports such as football. The tests require parental permission.

The and WellStar plan to discuss their concussion partnership at a news conference Thursday at 10:30 a.m. at .

Scheduled to be at the news conference is Mark Brown, a physician with WellStar and an ImPACT consultant who heads the Concussion Center of North Atlanta in Woodstock, one of four Atlanta-area clinics routinely offering the testing.

“This is not a test to keep your kids out longer,” Brown told the Marietta Daily Journal. “Most kids are going to be out for one game. You know you’re safe then.”

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