Concussion Management Program

Today’s speaker was John Chehade of the Concussion Management Program. John was a middle line backer at University of Waterloo and at Western. He introduced his talk by showing clips of him getting concussed in a Mustang’s game. Sport Canada estimate that of every 17 players 1.5 will get a concussion at some time. As a result of growing awareness a program of testing (neurocognitive baseline testing)  has been introduced and is gradually becoming mandatory (in the US all but 7 states have some form of mandated or even legislated testing). John described how a standard – the Zurich 2008 Consensus – had been established.

 

While 80% of concussions have their symptoms resolved in 7-10 days, without proper understanding of the signs and symptoms, people can return to activity too soon. This results in a much heightened sensitivity to future concussions. Players under the age of 18 have a developing brain and much more caution should be exercised with their concussions. It is hard to tell between usual kid behaviour and real concussion. The “return to play” decision should only be made by a qualified physician. The physician’s work is made easier by having results of baseline (before) and after concussion test results.

 

John’s organization has testing programs available and he finished his talk by generously donating $2,500 worth of testing time to Dundas organizations to be selected by Rotary.