Orthopedics & Rehabilitation (see more articles like this)

When Nathan Darley, a junior varsity football player at Oviedo High School, hit his head against his teammate’s shoulder pad at football practice, he said his head felt like it had been “squashed.”
In the past, high school athletes like Darley may not have known if such an injury resulted in a concussion or if they should continue playing.  Each year, there are 300,000 sports-related pediatric concussions.  Left untreated, these concussions can lead to serious long-term problems with memory, attention and information processing or even permanent brain damage or death.

“One thing we know is if you sustain a concussion before your previous concussion is healed, the next concussion can be much worse and have a greater impact and a lot greater symptoms, and then it takes a lot longer to recover from that concussion than it would have had you fully recovered from the first,” said Dr. Michelle Dolske, clinical neuropsychologist at Florida Hospital.
That is why Florida Hospital Neurosurgeon Dr. Melvin Field has developed a unique sports concussion program at the Florida Hospital Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center that uses a definitive, objective standard for concussions.  The program is the only one of its kind in Florida and is designed for use in any contact sport, including football, baseball, basketball, soccer, and cheerleading.

“The purpose of the program is to educate the personal trainers, the coaches, the team physicians, the parents, and the athletes themselves as to the signs and symptoms of concussion, the risks of concussion, the potential long-term effects of concussion, and things we can do to get them back on the field quicker when they have suffered a concussion,” Field said.
Software called ImPACT measures the athletes’ neurocognitive abilities such as their memory, attention, information processing skills, and reaction time.  In addition to this testing, Florida Hospital’s program is the first to use physical exertion testing in conjunction with the computer testing to determine the true extent of an athlete’s injury. 

“One of the things that we learned very early on when we started studying concussions was that the athlete often is not going to tell you about their symptoms,” Field said. “The athlete wants to go back and play.  Unfortunately, those types of behaviors would be detrimental to their own health.” 

Florida Hospital is partnering with approximately a dozen high schools across Central Florida to test athletes at the beginning of the sports seasons to establish their baselines and determine their “normal” performance.  If they sustain a concussion or brain injury during the season, they can be retested within 24-72 hours against their baseline to determine the cognitive effects of the concussion.  The test is repeated at specific intervals until the athlete returns to normal.  The athlete then performs physical exertion tasks to confirm that they are ready to play.
 
All of the football athletes at the University of Central Florida have also had the baseline testing.

Signs and symptoms of concussion include:
• Headache
• Nausea/vomiting
• Dizziness
• Confusion
• Concentration problems
• Memory problems
• Loses consciousness (even briefly)

For questions or more information, please contact Florida Hospital Media Relations at (407) 303-8217.