Concussion Protocols

[Wyovanian]

I'm looking for some knowledgeable insight into the Concussion Protocols our program uses. Personally, I find it odd that we've had someone held out of six straight games as indicated by our protocols. Anecdotally, I've heard Wick, in particular, is showing signs of brain damage vs. concussion.

If anyone has some solid insight or more info about Wick's condition, I'm sure there are others who'd find it interesting...

 

[fromolwyoming]

I can't speak for the team or Wick, but only from an observer, but when watching Wick run (and when he wasn't taken down as soon as he got the ball), he did not have the same ability that he had last year, like something was off.

But if Wick has had concussion like symptoms this long, it most likely means his career in football is over. It could be any number of things, but repeated head traumas can have long lasting effects. Meaning something could have happened during last spring, summer, and/or this fall to have contributed as well. Whether or not he told anyone, is hard to say, but considering that back in high school he played on a broken leg for a good part of the season without telling people, leads me to believe he may not have been completely forthcoming until it was obvious something was wrong. This is not in anyway anything I have heard, but speculation based from observing concussions and Wick's own history.

 

[hithere]

I can't speak for the team or Wick

Yet you go on for another 150+ words.

I'd like to know about this too. Maybe from some of the players' dads?

 

[fromolwyoming]

I can't speak for the team or Wick

Yet you go on for another 150+ words.

I'd like to know about this too. Maybe from some of the players' dads?

Speculation. Am I not allowed to speculate where others always speculate? Or is it merely reserved for a select few?

 

[cali2wyo]

Holmgren browses here kinda often it seems based off his twitter. Hopefully he sees this and decides to put on his detective hat.

 

[Cowduck]

I'm looking for some knowledgeable insight into the Concussion Protocols our program uses. Personally, I find it odd that we've had someone held out of six straight games as indicated by our protocols. Anecdotally, I've heard Wick, in particular, is showing signs of brain damage vs. concussion.

If anyone has some solid insight or more info about Wick's condition, I'm sure there are others who'd find it interesting...

I don't have any insight into Wick's condition, but "brain damage v. concussion" is not really a dichotomy. A concussion IS a traumatic brain injury.

 

[WestWYOPoke]

I am not personally familiar with Wyoming's specific concussion protocol, but having worked with the concussion protocols at a few NCAA institutions, I can speak at to what it probably looks like.

An athlete exhibiting concussion-like symptoms (or one that lost consciousness from contact) will have to see the team's primary care physician to be diagnosed with a concussion. At this point, the physician may provide care or refer the athlete to a specialist such as a neuropsychologist. This individual would be the person "in charge" of his treatment moving forward in conjunction with the head team physician and the athletic training staff.

In order to be cleared, the athlete will have to meet a set list of criteria.

First, they will need to completely symptom-free before they can begin any return-to-play progression. This means, everything is on hold as long as the athlete has: headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and/or sound, confusion, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, nervousness, anxiety, etc.

Once the athlete is symptom free, they will most likely need to pass a concussion-specific cognitive functioning test such as the Impact software. They used this when I was at UW, so my guess is they still do. This test takes about 30 minutes to complete and tests the athlete's reaction time, short-term memory, impulse control, visual motor speed and other cognitive function. At this point they will need to be cleared by the team physician and/or specialist in order to move on to return-to-play progression.

This final stage will consist of slowly increasing the intensity of exercise over a 3-10 day period to ensure that the athlete does not have a relapse in any symptoms and that they can return to full play without complication.

Once they have completed all of this, they will be cleared to return to play by the physician and/or specialist.

This is all assuming that the athlete didn't exhibit any physical signs of brain damage on a CT scan or PET scan; if that happened, then we are in a whole different discussion entirely.

 

[Cowduck]

I am not personally familiar with Wyoming's specific concussion protocol, but having worked with the concussion protocols at a few NCAA institutions, I can speak at to what it probably looks like.

An athlete exhibiting concussion-like symptoms (or one that lost consciousness from contact) will have to see the team's primary care physician to be diagnosed with a concussion. At this point, the physician may provide care or refer the athlete to a specialist such as a neuropsychologist. This individual would be the person "in charge" of his treatment moving forward in conjunction with the head team physician and the athletic training staff.

In order to be cleared, the athlete will have to meet a set list of criteria.

First, they will need to completely symptom-free before they can begin any return-to-play progression. This means, everything is on hold as long as the athlete has: headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and/or sound, confusion, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, nervousness, anxiety, etc.

Once the athlete is symptom free, they will most likely need to pass a concussion-specific cognitive functioning test such as the Impact software. They used this when I was at UW, so my guess is they still do. This test takes about 30 minutes to complete and tests the athlete's reaction time, short-term memory, impulse control, visual motor speed and other cognitive function. At this point they will need to be cleared by the team physician and/or specialist in order to move on to return-to-play progression.

This final stage will consist of slowly increasing the intensity of exercise over a 3-10 day period to ensure that the athlete does not have a relapse in any symptoms and that they can return to full play without complication.

Once they have completed all of this, they will be cleared to return to play by the physician and/or specialist.

I'll add that IMPACT and other similar cognitive testing protocols involve establishing a healthy baseline. I'll be that every athlete (not just football players) at Wyoming has had IMPACT baseline testing pretty early on in their time in the athletic department.

 

[WestWYOPoke]

I am not personally familiar with Wyoming's specific concussion protocol, but having worked with the concussion protocols at a few NCAA institutions, I can speak at to what it probably looks like.

An athlete exhibiting concussion-like symptoms (or one that lost consciousness from contact) will have to see the team's primary care physician to be diagnosed with a concussion. At this point, the physician may provide care or refer the athlete to a specialist such as a neuropsychologist. This individual would be the person "in charge" of his treatment moving forward in conjunction with the head team physician and the athletic training staff.

In order to be cleared, the athlete will have to meet a set list of criteria.

First, they will need to completely symptom-free before they can begin any return-to-play progression. This means, everything is on hold as long as the athlete has: headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and/or sound, confusion, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, nervousness, anxiety, etc.

Once the athlete is symptom free, they will most likely need to pass a concussion-specific cognitive functioning test such as the Impact software. They used this when I was at UW, so my guess is they still do. This test takes about 30 minutes to complete and tests the athlete's reaction time, short-term memory, impulse control, visual motor speed and other cognitive function. At this point they will need to be cleared by the team physician and/or specialist in order to move on to return-to-play progression.

This final stage will consist of slowly increasing the intensity of exercise over a 3-10 day period to ensure that the athlete does not have a relapse in any symptoms and that they can return to full play without complication.

Once they have completed all of this, they will be cleared to return to play by the physician and/or specialist.

I'll add that IMPACT and other similar cognitive testing protocols involve establishing a healthy baseline. I'll be that every athlete (not just football players) at Wyoming has had IMPACT baseline testing pretty early on in their time in the athletic department.

This is actually no longer the case at every institution. Impact has found that in order to have an accurate baseline, an individual needs to be isolated when they take the test. This means only 1 athlete in a room at a time. For some schools that is just not feasible when you are bringing in 100-200 new athletes every year. As a result, they recommend if you can't test everyone, that you test the "high-risk" individuals which would be anyone with a prior concussion or with some kind of cognitive impairment such as a learning disability, ADHD, bipolar, etc.

For those with no established baseline, normative date compiled by Impact would be used to compare for these athletes in the event of a concussion.

Not sure if Wyoming does test every newcomer or not, they still might.

 

[Cowduck]

Here, this seems relevant:

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/wyo/genrel/auto_pdf/2014-15/misc_non_event/ConcEducation.pdf

Looks like as of July 2014, they were still doing baseline testing for all athletes.

 

[WilyWapiti]

It seems that there are some cool, low-tech devices that can detect the g-force of an impact;
http://shockwatch.com/products/impact-and-tilt/impact-indicators" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Why could these not be installed on football helmets to indicate if a player has been subjected to an impact greater than x.x number of G's that would indicate a possible concussion situation?

Relying on a player to self-report is probably not a great idea.

WW

 

[laxwyo]

6 weeks doesn't sound unreasonable for someone who's had multiple concussions.

Since Wick isn't getting a pro salary, I'd think his football days are over.

 

[WestWYOPoke]

It seems that there are some cool, low-tech devices that can detect the g-force of an impact;
http://shockwatch.com/products/impact-and-tilt/impact-indicators" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Why could these not be installed on football helmets to indicate if a player has been subjected to an impact greater than x.x number of G's that would indicate a possible concussion situation?

Relying on a player to self-report is probably not a great idea.

WW

There has been a lot of talk about these in the last few years in the sports medicine world. I would say the first reason they aren't more widely used is they are still somewhat unproven, they are still being evaluated for efficacy and accuracy.

The second reason is probably push-back from coaching staffs, I'm sure that they don't like the idea of some device telling you to pull your kid when the kid says he is fine. It's that old "rub some dirt on it" mentality. This will slowly change in the next few years. One prospect I can see is if they do start going to these, we are going to see a lot more people getting pulled out of practice and games than we do now.

 

[WestWYOPoke]

6 weeks doesn't sound unreasonable for someone who's had multiple concussions.

Since Wick isn't getting a pro salary, I'd think his football days are over.

Absolutely, 6 weeks is long but not outrageous. I worked with an athlete that suffered a concussion in a car crash, she actually exhibited post-concussive symptoms for 9 months! Some people just take longer to recover than others.

 

[laxwyo]

6 weeks doesn't sound unreasonable for someone who's had multiple concussions.

Since Wick isn't getting a pro salary, I'd think his football days are over.

Absolutely, 6 weeks is long but not outrageous. I worked with an athlete that suffered a concussion in a car crash, she actually exhibited post-concussive symptoms for 9 months! Some people just take longer to recover than others.

I'd rather see a kid be out 6-10 weeks straight rather than come back too quick once and then leave the next game.

 

[Asmodeanreborn]

6 weeks doesn't sound unreasonable for someone who's had multiple concussions.

Since Wick isn't getting a pro salary, I'd think his football days are over.

Absolutely, 6 weeks is long but not outrageous. I worked with an athlete that suffered a concussion in a car crash, she actually exhibited post-concussive symptoms for 9 months! Some people just take longer to recover than others.

I'd rather see a kid be out 6-10 weeks straight rather than come back too quick once and then leave the next game.

No kidding - and these are student athletes, meaning that certain multiple (and I guess sometimes singular) concussion side effects would render them unable to even go to class as the environment would make it impossible.

 

[WyoBrandX]

Concussions are a tough subject. Obviously, damaging the brain is a big problem. Each concussion is different and each individual is different.

I don't know alot about the process - but it does seem like detecting the G-forces in a helmet could help determine if a concussion occurred or not. It wouldn't be an all inclusive means to detection - but it could be enough to toss up a flag and do a quick examination of the player to ensure he/she is ok. Then do a more thorough evaluation after the game.

It is tough out there - players are bigger and stronger and faster than ever. But skulls and brains are still the same as they have been.

Tough times out there.

 

[Wyovanian]

I'm looking for some knowledgeable insight into the Concussion Protocols our program uses. Personally, I find it odd that we've had someone held out of six straight games as indicated by our protocols. Anecdotally, I've heard Wick, in particular, is showing signs of brain damage vs. concussion.

If anyone has some solid insight or more info about Wick's condition, I'm sure there are others who'd find it interesting...

I don't have any insight into Wick's condition, but "brain damage v. concussion" is not really a dichotomy. A concussion IS a traumatic brain injury.

Generally, an injury is something one recovers from. Damage is (or can be) permanent.

 

[Wyovanian]

6 weeks doesn't sound unreasonable for someone who's had multiple concussions.

Since Wick isn't getting a pro salary, I'd think his football days are over.

Absolutely, 6 weeks is long but not outrageous. I worked with an athlete that suffered a concussion in a car crash, she actually exhibited post-concussive symptoms for 9 months! Some people just take longer to recover than others.

I honestly can't recall another FBS player in any program being out this long. I'm probably missing an example, but I just can't think of one.

 

[BackHarlowRoad]

I honestly can't recall another FBS player in any program being out this long. I'm probably missing an example, but I just can't think of one.

Do you read every FBS program's injury report every week? Haha

I'd be very willing to bet that every program in America has had a student-athlete quit playing their respective sport due to recurring head injuries. Anything lasting longer than 10 days is considered a difficult case, so it's certainly not typical, but is more common than you may think.

If you'd like an example of a prominent player, Jahvid Best when he was at Cal was out nearly 2 months. He was also forced into early retirement from the NFL 4 years later after missing the entire 2012 season due to post-concussion syndrome that began the previous season. That means his symptoms lasted for over a year, a minimum of 9x the amount of time Wick's been out.