More severe handling of student athlete concussions will be at the forefront of athletic department policies around the state after a bill requiring more intense and rounded education of the risks associated with concussions passed the Assembly last week.
Under the bill passed Friday, players involved in a youth sporting event who are experiencing symptoms that suggest they have a concussion must be removed from the game or practice and are not allowed to play until they have been cleared by a health professional to do so.
Consequently, a player will not be able to play for the remainder of the week unless they show no signs of concussive symptoms as determined by a heath professional.
David Bernhardt, a medicine and public health professor at the University of Wisconsin, said the public has become more aware of the effect concussions have on youth athletics.
The current attention paid to concussions, Bernhardt said, is in part due to the increased focus professional and collegiate sporting leagues have put on collision-induced head traumas over the past several years.
Jay Heck, director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, said a bill of this nature would not receive much political turmoil, a rarity he said from the heated measures that have occurred during the past session of the Legislature.
“[With this bill] there’s not much politics involved,” Heck said. “I can’t think of anyone who would be opposed to taking extra safety precautions for [concussions].”
Heck said while it is unfortunate this type of bipartisanship has not been experienced in job creation legislation, it is encouraging to see the Legislature uniting to pass legislation which can keep kids in the state safe.
Athletic trainers are taking a more conservative approach when it comes to treating and diagnosing a player with a potential concussion, Bernhardt said.
Guidelines and preventative measures adapted by trainers from high school to the professional level have also been evolving, he said, due to the increasing information from the medical community about the long-term ramifications concussions may have.
School athletic programs do not have the resources to provide a medical professional at every youth sports game, he said. He said the legislation wisely puts the responsibility on coaches to determine if a player is experiencing concussive symptoms.
While many of the long-term effects of concussions are still being discovered, Bernhardt said the psychological damages of concussions are better known. An athlete experiencing post-concussive syndrome, or the presence of long term symptoms of a concussion, often deals with some level of anxiety and depression.
Moreover, Bernhardt said the most common effects of post concussive syndrome are chronically recurrent headaches. Athletes can also experience a lack of focus, prolonged fogginess and a slower reaction time.
Bernhardt said the risk of receiving an initial concussion in a youth sporting event is not likely to decrease. However, he said the legislation’s requirement that prohibits players with concussion symptoms from playing prevents them in theory from receiving a second concussion.
“[The legislation] decreases the risk of having multiple head injuries, but has it decreased the risk? No, but it’s a step in right direction,” Bernhardt said.
