Burlington, News

Head on approach: Schools take proactive stance on football concussions

Kresken web
Cole Kresken is shown here running the ball last year for Catholic Central High School. Football players are among those benefiting from increased concussion awareness and treatment. (File Photo)

By Jennifer Eisenbart
EDITOR
The 2016 edition of “Friday Night Lights” – the prep football season – kicks off this week, bringing with it the spectacular plays and hard hits associated with the sport.
With some of those hits come concussions – an injury that has gained more emphasis as time has gone on, and which technology and medicine have evolved to help prevent.
As a result, Catholic Central High School football coach Tom Aldrich believes the game is safer than before.
“I think the game is as safe as it’s ever been, due to equipment and due to awareness,” Aldrich said. “Any time as coaches we have an inkling something may be going on, (athletic training staff) will take a look at them.
“It takes it out of our hands,” Aldrich added, pointing to the importance of an unbiased opinion.
That opinion now comes from athletic training staff that accompanies each team as they practice and compete. The monitoring comes with new standards designed to keep an athlete from returning not only too soon, but also trying to ensure they are healed when they do return.
“It’s doing a much better job than anything that’s been done before,” explained Mike Reagles, the athletic trainer at Lake Geneva Badger High School.

New protocols
Where athletes used to be able to perhaps talk their way back into a game – or fake their way through sideline tests – today’s new protocols are far more stringent, said Lisa Kommer, a physical therapist at Aurora Health Care’s Lake Geneva clinic.
“It’s so important that the athlete stays safe,” she said, “because that second injury that can occur.”
Aurora offered concussion seminars last spring, which not only touched on the signs and treatment of concussions, but also touched on Second Impact Syndrome.
Some athletes who have gone back into a game prematurely have suffered from this, which turns a minor brain injury into a potentially fatal event. Second Impact Syndrome involves a second hit that creates uncontrollable intracranial bleeding and brainstem herniation.
Ninety percent of the athletes who develop the syndrome die.
As a result, athletic trainers are erring on the side of caution where there is a potential concussion.
“Just by looking at them, it’s pretty difficult (to determine),” said Reagles, adding that the additional sideline testing allows athletic trainers to better assess an athlete.
Many area schools use ImPACT testing, a process that sets a baseline of responses to the test. Athletic trainers, doctors and other medical staff then have something to evaluate against in judging an athlete’s progress.
And now, that recovery process entails several steps. Athletes who suffer a concussion must be symptom-free for 24 hours in order to return to light activity, and then hopefully progress to a full return on a step-by-step basis.
If an athlete develops symptoms during any of the steps, he or she must repeat the step. Those steps – which range from light aerobic activity to a full return to practice – must be completed without symptoms.
Some athletes return quickly, but others can take up to a year to recover.
“There’s really no way to know how quickly that athlete will heal,” Kommer said.
Added Reagles, “It’s doing a much better job than anything that’s been done before.”
Aldrich, who has had players go through the new processes, likes how the steps work.
“They reduce the chance to have that repeat concussion,” Aldrich said. “Is it still possible? Sure.
“They may tell you they’re OK, but now we have technology and protocols that ensure they are properly healed before they come back.”

The next step
Aurora has opened the next step in its treatment of concussions, a clinic open Mondays from 8:30 a.m. to noon at Aurora Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center, Aurora Concussion Clinic, 700 Geneva Parkway N., Lake Geneva.
Kommer said the clinic will offer not just athletic trainers and physical therapy, but the services of Dr. Stephen Peterson and a speech therapist.
“The purpose of the concussion clinic is to have a more multi-disciplinary approach,” she said. “The purpose of the clinic was to coordinate care to receive the best care they can (get).”
Kommer said that will include vestibular therapy, which deals with balance and the communication between the inner ear and the brain. With dizziness and balance issues often a sign of concussion, vestibular therapy helps with balance activities and gaze stability.
“We assess them, find out what level they’re at,” Kommer said. “Then we make a program to progress them from where they’re at.
“We’re really trying to provide the best care possible,” she added. “To get the athlete back into their activities safely, as quick as we can.”
For more information on the concussion clinic, call (262) 249-3500.

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