Health and Fitness : Taking concussions seriously: Cognitive test helps protect VS students

Have you ever tried to explain the effect of a concussion to someone who did not understand it?

My first attempt at this came on Friday, Sept. 13, 1974.

I had been playing sandlot football at recess with my third-grade peers and while running a pass route I was cruelly blind-sided by a utility pole. My friends say I was unconscious for a few moments.

I got up, got back in the game, and soon we returned to class.

Shortly later, I began to feel dizzy and everything got blurry. I felt nauseated with a hot burning headache.

“I don’t feel so good,” I said to Mrs. Hatfield, everyone’s favorite teacher at West Elementary in Independence.

“Maybe you’re just tired,” said Mrs. Hatfield.

I remembered seeing on a TV show a few weeks earlier a man who had been hit in the head, and how he saw the world around him spinning as he staggered along. I was pretty sure I was experiencing the same thing.

I tried to explain.

“I hit my head at recess and now everything is blurry.”

“Maybe you need your eyes checked,” replied Mrs. Hatfield.

No, I insisted. I told her about the symptoms: Headache, nausea dizziness.

This debate with Mrs. Hatfield continued until I threw up. I went to the Nurse’s Office, and after I got home, ended up spending the night in the hospital, but only for observation. What I remember most is feeling so sick to my stomach but seeing all those commercials for food on the little black and white TV connected to that movable arm attached to the wall near the bed.

Exactly one week later, I came back in from recess with another concussion. I had help on this one; another player tackled me by the shoulder and I hit the back of my head on the ground.

It was easier communicating my condition to Mrs. Hatfield the second time. The hospital experience was not any different, however.

Exactly one week after this, Mrs. Hatfield looked at me. I had been tackled again, this time into a fence. But fortunately, I crashed shoulder-first into the chain links and I was a bit sore but my head was ok.

“Don’t worry,” I replied. “I won’t throw up today.”

I suppose it’s ironic that among my clearest memories of my elementary days are my concussions.

I don’t remember any lasting effects from those two neurological events when I was 8, although my family for years would joke about my absent-mindedness, forgetfulness and microscopic attention span – all of which are still present.

“There’s a new concussion test they give all the athletes at the high school,” I told Mrs. C the other day. “I’m going to take it with the students.”

She laughed and said: “Isn’t it too late?”

I suffered two more incidents that were probably concussions in middle school, one playing basketball during recess, the other in an ill-advised stunt in “tumbling” class in gym. But I didn’t tell my parents about either incident. Looking back, I think that perhaps some of the school days I missed in seventh and especially eighth grade due to headaches and nausea were quite possibly the result of those head injuries.

No Longer a Joke

Even though concussions – often called “dings” in the early days of the NFL – were well-known, few people when I was a young football fan worried about long-term effects. Former player and broadcaster Frank Gifford suffered one of the most well-known concussions. A tackle by Chuck Bednarik knocked Gifford unconscious; he would not return until the start of the 1962 season.

Yet, there remained the belief that concussions were not so serious.

My arch-nemesis in the NFL, Tom Landry, whose Dallas Cowboys were always beating my beloved Minnesota Vikings when it mattered most, once joked about a concussion suffered by QB Roger Staubach.

“Thank God it’s his head and not his knee,” said Landry.

But a few years later, after suffering his 19th and 20th concussions, Staubach retired from the NFL.

While I can merely wonder about the effects of concussions on me, I am familiar with at least some families area whose sons were injured playing football. Those parents have no doubt that later symptoms were caused by an earlier concussion.

“It’s an awful feeling when the play is over and you see your child not moving,” said the mother of a middle-school aged player who suffered a concussion last season, but plans to play again this year.

Another area player suffered headaches and other symptoms for months after sustaining a football concussion, interfering with his daily activities and other sports.

Student Safety and Impact Testing

Along with the well-publicized NFL concussion settlement, concussions have been in the news as former players like Tony Dorsett and Terry Bradshaw discuss the lingering health effects caused by years of regular hard contact to their helmets.

There has also been a movement to detect concussions and to make sure any young player who has suffered a head injury has recovered before returning to the field.

Along with medical trainers who can conduct a variety of field tests to determine the severity of a head injury, and imaging that can show doctors any neurological damage, another test has become a protocol for teams from the high school level through the highest ranks of the pros.

It was that test that brought about 200 students –approximately half of the Vinton-Shellsburg student body – to the high school auditorium on Thursday.

Sponsored by Dr. DM Fitzgerald & Associates of Cedar Rapids, the test is offered free to area athletes.

There are several versions of what are known as cognitive impact tests. The one VS athletes (including cheerleaders and dance team members) took is administered by the Impact company. The 30-minute assessment offers a baseline overview of an athlete’s mental capacities, specifically in memory and reaction time.

Although the student-athletes do not receive a score for their test, each individual’s results is maintained in a data base. If a student suffers a head injury, and has been cleared by doctors to resume playing, they then must re-take the test to ensure that they are not suffering any invisible signs of concussion.

The test includes reading a list of words, one at a time, and then being asked to remember what words are on the list. Other parts of the test include remembering shapes, responding quickly to whether the student sees a red circle or blue square. One part of the exam gives the athletes three letters to remember in order, then runs them through a series of other tests before asking them to list those three letters again. The test ends by asking the students about the list of words at the beginning of the assessment.

A student who does pass the cognitive test will not be cleared to play, even if medical tests show no signs of damage.

“It’s one more tool for us to help protect our students,” says VS Activities Director Jim Struve. "If after an injury they do not pass this test, they will have to take it again, and won't play until they pass it."