Personal Injury Law

Bill Aimed At Creating Awareness Program for Prevention, Risk and Treatment of Sports-related Brain Injuries

By Bruce Stern

Legislation sponsored by Assembly members Pat Diegnan, Craig Coughlin, Thomas Giblin and Mila Jasey aimed at creating an awareness program on the prevention, risk and treatment of sports-related brain injuries has passed the full Assembly. The Bill would require student athletes who sustain a concussion to be immediately removed from the activity. Additionally, the Bill states that the student would not be allowed to return to the field until they have been evaluated by a doctor who is trained in the evaluation and management of concussions and has given the student written permission to return to physical activity.

"Head injuries are always traumatic, doubly so when they affect the life of a young athlete," says Diegnan, chairman of the Assembly education panel. "With the competitive, high impact nature of high school sports continuing to intensify, we owe it to these student athletes to look not just at the effects of these injuries, but to take an active role in their diagnosis and prevention."

The Bill would also require the state Commissioner of Education, as well as the Commissioner of Health and Senior Services, to develop an awareness program which address the prevention, risk and treatment of sports related concussions and other brain injuries among student athletes.

The program would create a brain injury fact sheet containing information concerning the prevention, symptoms and dangers of concussions and other traumatic brain injuries. The program would provide information on the appropriate amount of time to delay a student's return to physical activity after sustaining a brain injury. The program would also require school districts develop a written policy addressing the prevention and treatment of sports related concussions and other brain injuries to be used when it is suspected that a student athlete has sustained such an injury.

Full post as published by Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog on August 12, 2010 (boomark / email).