Computer responses call head-trauma signals

BOULDER — Hundreds of student athletes in the Boulder Valley have taken a neurocognitive test at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine that may help save lives.

The free, 30-minute Concussion Vital Signs test basically measures a person’s reaction times and ability to concentrate.

How it works: The person being tested sits at a computer and responds on the keyboard to a series of numbers and shapes that flash across the screen. The baseline test measures verbal memory, visual memory, psycho-motor speed, cognitive flexibility, and simple reaction time, said Jason Amrich, a physical therapist and director of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, a division of Boulder Community Hospital.

If the test is taken again after suffering a concussion, he said, the test score will be lower — a measure that signals to coaches, athletes and parents that an athlete is not ready to go back to the game.

Since every person’s baseline test result is different, the second test result is used as a comparison with the original, said Shannon Averton, head athletic trainer at Boulder High School. About 150 Boulder High School student athletes took the baseline test last year, the first year it was offered in the Boulder Valley School District, Averton said.

“If the concussion is severe enough that you need treatment with speech, balance, vision and cognitive issues, the athlete can sit around and wait for symptoms to clear up,” Amrich said. “(But) returning to sports improperly is unsafe, both in the short term and the long term. It’s a great idea to add more science to the equation.”

Since the recent suicides of professional football players Junior Seau and Ray Easterling, — which some believe are related to repeated concussions the men received during football — the concussion issue has been a hot topic of discussion in sports.

In addition, an Atlanta attorney is co-counsel for more than 200 players who have sued the National Football League. Seau is best known for his play on the San Diego Chargers, and Easterling was a former Atlanta Falcons safety.

Brain damage gets personal

Potential brain damage to their sons and daughters who are high school athletes is a personal issue for many parents, said Amrich, who remembers suffering a concussion in a school football practice as a youth while trying to show his coach that he could tackle the quarterback.

The greatest risk from a concussion is Second Impact Syndrome, which causes brain injury or even death when an injured athlete returns to competition too soon and suffers another head injury, said Rich Sheehan, a spokesman at Boulder Community Hospital.

That’s one of the reasons the hospital and the Center for Sports Medicine have joined to offer the testing free of charge to students. The Boulder Community Hospital Foundation paid the $3,750 needed to buy the licenses needed to offer the test to students in the Boulder Valley school district, Amrich said.

“We see repeated head trauma effects that we’re just starting to realize,” Amrich said. “This helps the coach . . . navigate around an athlete withholding symptoms. It’s a little more of a black-and-white result that shows this person is ready. It’s a really helpful thing.”

At Broomfield High School, about 150 students took the test last year, Averton said, with Centaurus, Monarch and Fairview high schools all seeing about 100 student athletes take the test.

The second concussion test scores never kept a student out of a game if a doctor had given the OK to be able to play again last year, Averton said. But Averton believes the test will be used more in coming years to make decisions about safety.

“If it’s the Boulder-Fairview (football) game, you can’t tell someone he can’t play because of an injury,” Averton said. “But parents realize that you only get one brain, and it’s the second hit that’s going to hurt you, not the first one.”

School trainers and the Center for Sports Medicine expect to see an increase in testing this year, now that more student athletes know about it. The test is currently voluntary, and parents learn about it in an informational brochure in the packet their kids get when they sign up to play a sport.

“We’ve learned a lot, and we want to publicize it to parents more,” Averton said.

Anyone can take a sample test online by going to the local website concussionvitalsigns.com.

Beth Potter can be reached at 303-630-1944 or via email at bpotter@bcbr.com.

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