Pottsgrove High School Athletic Director Gary DeRenzo said he hosts meetings for parents and athletes before the beginning of each season to introduce guidelines and regulations on how concussions and head injuries will be handled.

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Before each season, student-athletes take a computerized ImPACT Test that tracks brain functions before any reported concussions.

All student-athletes at Pottsgrove High School take the test except girls tennis players, boy’s tennis players and cross country runners, DeRenzo said.

But the testing does not stop when the season starts.

“If one of our student athletes has some kind of collision, and we feel there is a concussion or a slight concussion, we bring them in and they take the test again,” DeRenzo said.

DeRenzo said that the team doctor will read the results of the test and determine if there is a concussion.

Brain Injury can often lead to lawsuits. In these situations, the Law Group of Goldblatt & Associates, P.C. represents the legal interests of those individuals who have sustained traumatic brain injuries due to the negligence of others. In representing clients, the firm oversees and handles all aspects of insurance issues ranging from ensuring client’s medical bills are paid and assisting client’s in getting reimbursed for out of pocket expenses.

Not only does the testing not stop once the season starts, neither does the education.

It is not only the student athletes affected by such injuries. Worried parents must often navigate the medical after-affects of the injury which gets complicated.

Fortunately, not all injuries are severe, and they are increasingly taken more seriously than in decades past.

Despite the increased athleticism, competitiveness and popularity of soccer and other sports for young girls, DeRenzo said that top players do not underplay their head injuries.

“(Female athletes) know that the game is not more important than their health,” he said.

There is an athletic trainer at all the games and the district asks parents to help monitor their athlete as well. If the doctor sees any reason to re-test the athlete, they will come in and take the ImPACT Test again.

DeRenzo said it is never the coach’s responsibility to determine if a player has a concussion, only to keep them from playing for the pre-determined amount of time.

Joe Margusity, the president of the Vincent United Soccer Club, has been coaching girls soccer teams for more than 20 years. He agrees with the changes being made in protocol because it means the health of the athletes comes first.

Margusity, who coaches soccer players between the ages of 8 and 19, said that youth sports has become more competitive than in the past and players are given more opportunities to excel with year-long training.

But the intensified training can increase the possibility of head injuries.

“We have to set realistic parameters,” he said about the way athletes compete. “You are going to have collisions.

Margusity said with the extended training and growing collegiate programs, he sees girls becoming more aggressive and more willing to head the ball in soccer.

“I see one or two players who are good and willing to be physical,” Margusity said. He said that around age 15, some of his girls’ soccer players are ready to head the ball.

DeRenzo has also seen a change in female athletes.

“Girls’ sports have continued to evolve,” DeRenzo said. “What you are seeing now are high quality players that are mirroring what the boys did. They are bigger, faster, and stronger and they are specializing in sports.”

DeRenzo estimates that girls have tripled their amount of competitive playing time in soccer over the last 15 years. The main reason is that soccer leagues now operate year-round, giving girls more opportunity to compete and more necessity to train.

The elevated competition has also led to some pushback from parents about the attention on head injury recovery. With more competition for college scholarships, parents are sometimes dubious as to why their daughters should be sitting out while other girls are gaining playing time.

“It is the parents who are needy, not the kids,” Margusity said. “I have to remind them it is a game sometimes.”

DeRenzo said, however, that he got little parent pushback after his pre-season meeting. He said that change can be difficult, but a student’s health trumps playing time.

A similar approach is taken at The Hill School, said athletic director Seth Eilberg.

“We take concussions very seriously,” said Eilberg who added that, like Pottsgrove, The Hill creates a concussion “baseline” for each student athlete at the beginning of the season and has a protocol for them an injured athlete can return to play.

The Hill also stresses training as a way to avoid injury.

“We had a number of ankle injuries on the basketball team a few years ago, so we developed a number of exercises and had the students do them all year long and the result was many fewer strains,” Eilberg said. “Of course, that can be more difficult in trying to avoid concussions.”

“We have an outstanding support staff and two full-time trainers and any student who receives a head injury has to be cleared by our health center before returning to the field,” he said, noting that the presence of nurse practitioner Kathleen Van Buren, who is working on a Ph.D. thesis about concussions, provides an additional layer of expertise.

According to Margusity, a player has to have seven symptom-free days before being allowed to practice again.

Researchers, who studied athletes from 100 high schools around the United States from 2005-2007, found that while male and female athletes returned to play at varying times after suffering a concussion, girls were found to return to play more quickly.

“Sex Differences in Concussion Symptoms of High School Students” published in the Jan. 2011 edition of the Journal of Athletic Training, reported 64 percent of the student-athletes returned to play, on average, nine days post-injury.

“The greatest percentage of males returned to play between seven and nine days after concussion, whereas the greatest percentage of females returned between three and six days after concussion,” the study said.

With new regulations and standards in place, parents and players do not determine when it is appropriate for play to resume after an injury.

The new training allows the coaches to coach and trained professionals to diagnose a player with a concussion, DeRenzo said.

“The final call for us is our athletic training staff. Coaches and parents don’t tell us when an athlete should be playing,” DeRenzo said.

He emphasized that attitudes about concussions have changed in the last decade. The health impact of the injury is better understood. Schools are working to insure not only that athletes rest from the sport but that as students, they rest their brains, as well.

DeRenzo said that Pottsgrove now uses Brain Steps, a school re-entry consultation program to help determine when student-athletes can resume school work.

The reality is quite simple, DeRenzo said: “A blow to the head is a blow to the head.”

(Courtesy of http://www.pottsmerc.com/)

The Orthopedic & Brain Injury Law Group of Goldblatt & Associates, P.C. represents the legal interests of those individuals who have sustained traumatic orthopedic and brain injuries due to the negligence of others. In representing our clients, the firm oversees and handles all aspects of insurance issues ranging from ensuring client’s medical bills are paid and assisting client’s in getting reimbursed for out of pocket expenses, including lost wages.