Personal Injury Law

Will Stricter Guidelines Put Students at Greater Risk?

By Bruce Stern

I read an article on the New York Times' website yesterday entitled, New Guidelines on Young Athletes' Concussions Stir Controversy,  which discusses the guidelines used to regulate a student athlete's return to the field after a concussion has been suffered. While many are in favor of stricter regulations which are meant to protect students from long-term brain injuries, some now believe that the stricter guidelines can actually have a reverse effect on the players and their health.

Some professionals believe that imposing such strict guidelines will force students to lie about the severity of their injury in order to return to the field before they should. If this is the case, many students will go untreated for the initial injury and will be more susceptible to future long-term injuries.

The article discusses an international panel of neurologists who are updating their recommendations on concussion care in the May issue of The British Journal of Sports Medicine. The article states that any athlete age 18 or younger who was believed to have sustained a concussion during a game or practice should never be allowed to return to the playing field the same day. However, other doctors said they feared the effects of such strictness, and predicted that athletes would respond by hiding their injuries from coaches and trainers even more than they are already known to do.

You can read the full article online here.

Full post as published by Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog on June 08, 2009 (boomark / email).