Dec. 10, 2012

BEAUMONT – It's a sight that has become all-too-familiar in the fall. A football player lays motionless on the field, medical and athletic training staff surrounds him, and moments later, he slowly rises and gingerly makes his way towards the sidelines.

Concussions, dismissed as minor injuries for decades, have crept to the forefront of nearly every football issue over the past few years. A lot of injuries have a clear problem and a clear solution, that's what makes concussion management that much more difficult. 

"Essentially, in a concussion you have an impact on the brain," head LU athletic trainer Josh Yonker explained. "The brain is not tight against the skull, and so in an impact, it will hit against the inside of the skull and kind of bounce back and forth. That's what leads to memory loss, light sensitivity, nausea and the other symptoms of a concussion. Typically, there is no bleeding inside the brain, so it's not something that you can pick up on an MRI."

Due to the difficulties involved in the diagnosis, there are also issues in determining when an athlete is prepared to make a return to the playing field or court.

"You can't see a concussion," Yonker said. "If someone has a broken leg, you can see the swelling or you can take an X-ray. We have to make sure that an athlete's brain has returned to normal before we put them back out there because an elevation in heart rate or blood pressure can affect their brain and their recovery."

Due to the dangers associated with brain injuries, a number of schools began to set in place a concussion management plan for all sports, and, thanks in part to the services available on campus in the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Yonker combined with Vickie B. Dionne and her staff to come up with a comprehensive plan designed to provide Lamar student-athletes the cutting-edge care necessary for such an injury.

There's a belief out there that concussions can be eliminated with higher-technology gear, especially in football. However, due to the fact that concussions occur within the skull, the only surefire way to prevent the injury in football is to not play football.

"There are steps you can take to prevent a concussion," Yonker said. "You have to use proper technique, keep your chinstrap buckled, make sure there is enough air in the helmet, and so on. But, you can't totally prevent concussions from occurring. There will still be impacts to the head."

Following an elimination of all concussion-related symptoms, Lamar has implemented a comprehensive plan to ensure that no athlete returns to the field of play without being fully clear of the injury.

The plan centers on baseline testing in two areas. The first is ImPACT Testing, which is a computer-generated exam that each player takes prior to the season. Following a concussion, the player will take it once again, and the athletic training staff can compare the results to help judge whether the player has returned to a pre-concussion state.

The ImPACT test has become somewhat of an industry standard across all levels of athletics, but it's not without its own problems, which is why Lamar has also put in place, with the help of the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, the computerized dynamic posturography testing.

Taking the test can be quite the task. First, the athlete straps into an elaborate harness that is suspended from top of the machine. It seems a bit much at first, but after undergoing a series of balance tests, first on both feet and then on just one, the need for it becomes apparent, even in a concussion-free state.

The computer adjacent to the machine logs a number of statistics used to measure one's balance, and similar to the ImPACT test, pre-concussion data is compared to post-concussion data to help gauge an athlete's preparedness for returning to play.

Once the symptoms are gone and the tests have been completed satisfactorily, an athlete will slowly make his or her track back to full practices and games.

The importance of a measured return to play has become evident over the years as coming back too quickly leaves an athlete vulnerable to a second or third concussion in a short amount of time, which leads to far more dangerous conditions, both short term and long term. Implementing these tests has allowed Lamar to become a leader in the Southland for player safety that extends far beyond the traditional four-year Cardinal athletic career.

For more information about computerized dynamic posturography testing, contact the Lamar Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at (409) 880-8338.

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