Test removes doubt about athletes at risk

Yet Michael, who played one season for Indian Hills High School in Oakland, will never play the game he loves again.

Too many concussions have sidelined the 16-year-old Oakland resident from all contact sports. A doctor said repeated blows to Michael’s head could result in permanent brain damage.

Michael, entering his junior year, has incurred eight concussions since receiving his first one playing ice hockey in seventh grade. Most of them occurred last season, he said, while playing linebacker and tailback for Indian Hills’ varsity football team, which did not win a game in the 2009 season.

"I just wanted to win," Michael said last week. "I didn’t really care that much about concussions."

Despite his susceptibility to concussions, and despite sitting three games as a result of them, Michael led the team in tackles and was named second-team all-North Bergen Interscholastic Athletic League.

"The doctor said once you get a few, you are prone to them," Roberta, Michael’s mother, said about concussions. "He always hit very hard, sometimes leading with his head."

‘It’s an epidemic’

Cases as severe as Michael’s aren’t common, but concussions among young athletes are.

An estimated 300,000 concussions or mild traumatic brain injuries are diagnosed every year among both young male and female athletes, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

High schools in northwest Bergen County are aware of their prevalence, and, this year, most are applying new technology to protect their athletes from long-term brain injuries.

Five of six high schools in Suburban News’ coverage area have invested in ImPACT, a computerized, neurocognitive assessment that determines an athlete’s fitness to return to play after sustaining a concussion. In the case of Midland Park, although the district doesn’t have the test, some of its athletes are being tested by neighboring Waldwick.

"It’s an epidemic," said Dr. Mark Lovell, a neurologist and founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Sports Medicine Concussion Program. "We’re just in the right place at the right time to do something about it."

Lovell is the brains behind the ImPACT test and serves as chairman and developer of Pittsburgh-based ImPACT Applications Inc. ImPACT stands for Immediate Post-concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing.

"Part of the challenge is that these young athletes don’t always tell you what’s wrong with them," Lovell said, "but ImPACT is hard to fool."

Here is how it works: Prior to the start of the season, athletes use a computer program that analyzes and records their attention spans, memories and reaction times. The test takes 20 minutes to complete.

If it is believed an athlete has sustained a concussion during the course of play, that athlete is tested again. The score is compared to the athlete’s baseline data, and, if there is a significant difference, that athlete is sidelined. The athlete would continue testing, and sit out, until the scores match.

Concussions are commonly caused by a bump or blow to the head but also can be caused by sudden acceleration or deceleration of the head. In either case, the brain — suspended inside the head and surrounded by cerebrospinal fluid — hits the skull.

An athlete does not have to lose consciousness in sustaining a concussion. In fact, less than 10 percent of concussed athletes lose consciousness, according to The Valley Hospital Sports Institute.

Lovell said this summer has been ImPACT’s busiest season to date, as hundreds of doctors are being trained each month to use the test, which was developed first for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the early 1990s.

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