Sport Concussion Program

The Sport Concussion Program specializes in providing athletes, their parents, physicians and athletic trainers with the tools necessary to manage recovery and facilitate safe and confident return to play decision. An integral part of our comprehensive sport concussion management program is the utilization of cutting edge, neurocognitive, computeri... zed baseline (pre-injury) and post-injury testing. Our Sport Concussion Program proudly utilizes the ImPACT (TM) concussion management testing program. A concussion is an injury that affects the way our brain works. By having a sensitive measure of brain functioning, we are able to determine the severity of a concussion. Fortunately, most athletes cognitive functioning and physical symptoms return to normal within one to two weeks after a injury. Before the introduction of computerized cognitive testing, this decision was based on the athlete's subjective report of their symptoms. If an athlete reported that they were free of the physical symptoms of a concussion, they were often cleared to return to play. However, despite being symptom free, a brain can still be in recovery and still show deficits on cognitive functioning tests. We now know that athletes that return to play while their brain is still injured are at significantly higher risk of sustaining another brain injury. This cumalative injury can be very serious and place the athlete at risk for losing their season, ending their career, cause permanent brain damage, or in rare occurences it can cause death from Second Impact syndrome. The use of sensitive neurocognitive testing can now inform us if the brain is still in recovery and provide us with objective and data driven return to play decisions. Neurocognitive testing has been endorsed as playing a vital role in the management of sport concussion injuries by the Center for Disease Control, National Athletic Trainers Association and International Symposium on Concussion In Sports, to name a few.Read More