We all have the best of intentions and when I created this blog, I certainly had high expectations of what I wanted BSU to gain from it. Well work life happens and I got distracted and neglected the site. I apologize. My intentions were to continually educate our staff, administrators, coaches, students and athletes using the newest, fastest, "easiest" ways, through social media and blogs. I got away from this this past year but as I leave BSU, I want to certainly get this back on track. I take pride when coaches and administrators say they learned something from this, it is what I created it for.

As with every season, this year was no different and we were as usual faced with very difficult injuries. Concussions are certainly one that we face often and the complexity not only of what concussions actually cause but also how we handle them has become more complex. Is this bad? No, certainly science and research has taught us a lot and we in society are seeing more and more of this in the news. Is this difficult to understand and adjust to- ABSOLUTELY! Understandably so.

As research and science learns more and more about concussions, so doesn't the way we as athletic trainers/health care professionals treat concussions. Changes especially have been quite dramatic in the last couple years. Here in the BSU Sports Medicine-Athletic Training department we take great pride in that we are on top of the current research, take guidelines set forth by the NCAA, NATA and the latest research very seriously for the well being of our student athletes, not only today and tomorrow but for the rest of their lives.

Gone are the days of "just got his bell rung", sit it out a few minutes and get back in, and rest today- you'll be ready tomorrow. Gone are the days of everyone thinking a concussion is a "bruised brain" and a few days of healing and you'll be back to normal. Is it easy to foget that of what many have been taught all through their days of sports? NO, certainly not easy at all. At the ripe old age of 35, even I have really had to adjust in how to handle situations.

So I want to start with a few things to teach you, after all it is true that we can teach an "old" dog new tricks! I will put out a few definitions, let you digest the information and in the next few weeks, add some more information to it to help you understand concussions and we deal with them.

CONCUSSION: A complex pathophysiological process affecting the brain, induced by traumatic

biomechanical forces.

·  Direct blow or impulsive forces transmitted to the head

·  Typically results in rapid onset of neurological impairments

·  Functional injury: Not a structural injury

·  May or may not include loss of consciousness (LOC)

·  Not identifiable on standard imaging (CT, MRI)

MILD TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY (mTBI): 

· All concussions are a form of mTBI

· Not all mTBI's are concussions

· The terms concussion and mTBI should not be used interchangeably

POST CONCUSSION SYNDROME:

· A set of symptoms which may last days, months,  or years following a concussion

SECOND IMPACT SYNDROME:

· Rare condition when an athlete sustains a second head injury before the symptoms of the first injury have resolved. Second Impact Syndrome is often fatal.