Alphabet Soup: Concussion Assessment in Youth

August 25, 2015 by

alphabet soup 1

Chicken soup: good for the soul….good for concussion? Photo: strawberryblues Wikimedia

SCAT2, SCAT3, Child-SCAT 3, SAC, BESS…….as those of us in sports medicine know, concussion assessments have become an alphabet soup!

Our July 2015 edition of CJSM contains an interesting study looking at baseline SCAT2 assessments of healthy youth student-athletes; it also included some preliminary evidence for the use of the Child-SCAT3 in children younger than 13.

The 4th International Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport introduced the SCAT3 and Child-SCAT3 instruments.  The Child-SCAT3, in particular, was a significant advancement as there had been no pre-existing instrument for pediatric concussion assessments prior to the 2012 Zurich conference.  If you have not ever looked the Child-SCAT3 over, take the chance now by going to the freely available consensus statement–the Child-SCAT3 PDF is readily downloadable.  Among the differences between the SCAT3 and Child-SCAT3:  a different set of Maddocks questions (is it before or after lunch?); days of the week (as opposed to months of the year) in reverse order; a parent- as well as a self-assessment of symptoms (and the self-assessment is written in more age appropriate language).

Throughout the year, but especially at this time of year (late summer–football has begun) we do assessments like this for the large number of kids we see with concussions or suspected concussions.   Read more of this post

Filed under Concussion in Sport, General Interest Tagged with , , ,

Year’s End

December 11, 2014 by

Wells_Cathedral_in_the_reflecting_pool_in_the_grounds_of_the_Bishops_Palace

Reflections (Wells Cathedral)

We are all heading toward the finish line of 2014, and what a year it has been.

I’ll be in something of a reflective mood, I think, over these next several weeks, and I suspect my blog posts will, well, ‘reflect’ that state of mind….I hope to highlight some of this year’s developments in the sports medicine world, especially those that CJSM has contributed to.

The world of media is continuously expanding, and many of us now get our clinical sports medicine information from a multitude of sources besides print.  You may follow us on Twitter as well as get these blog posts delivered to your email inbox, for instance.

One of the exciting innovations we began this year at the journal was the “CJSM podcast,” which you can subscribe to on iTunes.  Our first podcast was with Drs. Oliver Leslie and Neil Craton, and concerned their critique of the Zurich Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport, which appeared in CJSM’s March 2014 issue.  The conversation regarding the consensus statement and the controversial critique has literally continued this entire year.  In our November 2014 issue, closing out this calendar year, there are a host of ‘Letters to the Editor’ addressing this issue:  these include  one written by the past-president of the Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine (CASEM), Pierre Fremont, as well as the reply made by Drs. Leslie and Craton to the various responses they received regarding their piece.

Other podcasts have addressed a variety of issues, including the concussion controversy at the 2014 FIFA World Cup [we had guests Drs. Cindy Chang, former president of the American College of Sports Medicine (AMSSM) and Matt Gammons, current AMSSM VP for that podcast] and the impact neuromuscular training programs can have on reducing ACL injury rates in youth soccer players.

I hope you have a chance to listen to all the podcasts, and to peruse all the contents of the November issue before this month ends.  Soon, we’ll be turning the corner into 2015, when we have a lot more in store to advance the cause of clinical sports medicine.  The January issue will be a good one, packed with new research and an important AMSSM consensus statement as well–highlighted, of course, by a podcast!

Filed under General Interest Tagged with , ,

CJSM Podcast 1

March 1, 2014 by 3 Comments

JSM-Podcast-BG (1)We are delighted to bring you our first Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine podcast:

We begin this month with a look at the provocative editorial in our new issue: Time to Re-Think the Zurich Guidelines: a Critique on the Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport. The article is authored by Drs. Oliver Leslie and Neil Craton, from Legacy Sport Medicine in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.  I caught up with the authors last week for an exciting discussion about their argument that it’s “…time for us to reject (the) diagnostic and therapeutic algorithm” proposed by the Zurich guidelines.

Let us know what you think on the comments section of this page, tweet us @cjsmonline, or go to the CJSM main page and take the Zurich guideline poll we have for you there.  Check out our recent blog post on this same subject.  And be sure to check out the many other offerings we have this month in the journal.  We’ll be writing and talking about them in the coming weeks.

Enjoy the podcast!

(music: Jeff Manning)

Filed under CJSM Podcasts, Concussion in Sport, General Interest Tagged with

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