SPOKANE, Wash. — Sports medicine physicians are working with high school athletic trainers to identify concussions as fall sports like football and girls soccer get underway across the region.
Public schools in Washington reported over 1,100 concussions from the summer of 2023 to 2024, highlighting the ongoing challenge facing athletic programs.
Dr. Tim Manson, a sports medicine physician with MultiCare who works with several schools in Spokane Valley, said following established safety protocols remains the most effective approach to preventing brain injuries.
“I would encourage them to pay attention to the rules, the safe rules that are designed to keep you from getting a concussion,” Manson said. “Take those wholeheartedly, take them seriously because those are the only things that have been shown to reduce a concussion.”
Medical experts say there isn’t extensive research available about concussion prevention methods, making early detection crucial for athlete safety.
Manson explained that certain types of impacts carry higher concussion risks than others.
“Most concussions come from a rotational hit,” he said. “It goes sideways in a rotatory fashion and the brain bounces back and forth on the inside.”
When evaluating potentially injured athletes, Manson said he removes players from games if he has any doubt about their condition.
“They generally don’t pay attention and their minds are wandering,” Manson said, describing common concussion symptoms. “You ask them a question, they’ll give you a blank stare and several seconds later they’ll come back like, ‘what are we talking about?'”
Dr. Ryan Baker, medical director of sports medicine at Shriners Hospitals Spokane, works with Spokane Public Schools to provide athletic trainers. He said concussion symptoms can vary significantly between individuals.
“Sometimes people might be stumbling, sometimes they might be having a labile mood or being angry where normally they’re not that kind of personality,” Baker said. “So, they have some sort of mood change or personality change.”
Baker said it’s important to remove athletes with suspected concussions from competition to prevent second impact syndrome, which causes rapid brain swelling and can occur when someone sustains a second concussion before fully recovering from the first.
Both physicians recommend that parents and coaches educate themselves about concussion symptoms to help protect young athletes.
The doctors said having more people trained to recognize potential brain injuries creates additional layers of protection for student-athletes participating in fall sports programs.
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