New Tests, Guidelines Aim To Protect Student-Athletes

As student athletes are returning to the field for pre-season training, new guidelines are being implemented by both the state and Sarasota County to help protect these athletes from serious injury and even death.

First up is the Florida High School Athletic Association's new requirements for student-athletes to protect them form the heat, inadequate hydration and concussions. Athletes in football, golf, swimming/diving and girls volleyball began practices Monday, and cross country and bowling will start next week.

“For coaches, parents and everyone else associated with high school athletics, nothing is more important the safety of the students,” said FHSAA Executive Director Dr. Roger Dearing. “At the FHSAA, we are committed to making sure our members understand what they must do to ensure that competitors have safe, enjoyable experiences as high school athletes.”

In July 2011, a football player at Miramar High School in Broward County died at practice and was believed to be heat related and in March 2011, a track athlete died two days after practice in Gainesville.

The FHSAA’s Board of Directors adopted new heat-related policies in June, to prevent heat related illnesses and death from practice.

Under the new policies, schools must:

• Limit weekly practice time to 18 hours during the first two weeks of practice, to allow student-athletes to adapt to conditions
• Ensure that for every 30 minutes of practice, student-athletes get a minimum five-minute rest and water/Gatorade break
• Require unrestricted access to water for student-athletes at all times
• Require coaches and others in authority to never deny a student-athlete access to water if requested.

Student-athletes and coaches were required to attend seminars going over these guidelines during the summer, according to the FHSAA.

The FHSAA also adopted a new concussion and heat-related illness form intended to create safety awareness among students and their caretakers by explaining the risks and symptoms associated with each problem. 

A concussion action plan developed by the FHSAA’s Sports Medicine Advisory Subcommittee and adopted by the Board requires that:

• Any student-athlete who exhibits signs, symptoms or behaviors consistent with a concussion – such as loss of consciousness, headache, dizziness, confusion or balance problems – must be immediate removed from the competition and cannot return to play until he or she is cleared by an appropriate health care professional.
• All head coaches and other paid coaches are required to view an online education course about concussions. 

Parents even have to sign a consent form concerning the rules and conditions regarding concussions and heat-related illnesses, according to the FHSAA.

Concussion Testing

Sarasota County will also implement new concussion baseline testing for football players and cheerleaders.

It's called the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing, or ImPACT. 

Before the season starts, athletes take a computerized test focusing on memory, speed and vision by use of patterns, words, letters, shapes and colors. The results serve as the baseline.

Then, when an athlete has a suspected head injury, the student takes the test again to compare if the results are significantly different to help determine if the student needs to sit out more or need more medical attention.

“The baseline testing is such a simple thing to do, but it’s a great asset for our high school 

sports programs and for our students who play,” said Sarasota County School Board member and 

football fan Jane Goodwin. “It’s one more tool in our toolbox to help ensure the safety of our young athletes.”

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center developed the test, which has since been used in the National Football League, National Hockey League, and high schools across the country for the last six years have started to adopt the test, mainly through grant funding. 

In Sarasota County, Dick's Sporting Goods funded the local pilot program, and the school district hopes to make the test available to other athletic programs next year.

“The ImPACT baseline concussion testing is just one of the things our school district is doing to provide quality health care to our student athletes,” said Keven Eichorn, director of Athletic Training Services for Agility Physical Therapy & Sports Performance and the athletic trainer at  . “Since 2000, we’ve contracted the services of certified athletic trainers for each of our high schools with athletic programs to provide health care coverage for our student  athletes."

(For more about the ImPACT test, check out this story I wrote way back in 2006 for The Journal in Martinsburg, W.Va.)