Brain Injury Associaton of New Jersey Awards ImPACT Grants
The Brain Injury Association of New Jersey (BIA-NJ) has awarded grants to 35 New Jersey high schools to implement ImPACT, Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing, in their athletic programs.
On May 22 and 23, athletic trainers and doctors from the schools attended ImPACT training sessions at the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association led by Mark Lovell, Ph.D., Director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Sports Medicine Concussion Program and one of the developers of ImPACT.
Grant recipients will begin baseline testing athletes prior to the Fall 2006 sports season. ImPACT is the most widely used computerized concussion evaluation system. If an athlete is suspected of sustaining a concussion during the season, he or she is retested and the post-concussion data is compared to the baseline data. The athlete usually takes the test several times in the days following the injury to help determine the recovery status. "Research has shown that a concussed athlete who returns to contact sports too soon before the brain has healed is at greater risk for further, more serious injury," according to Dr. Lovell.
The grant administered by BIA-NJ is funded by they New Jersey Traumatic Brain Injury Fund, which was created in part to provide public education and prevention activities related to brain injury. The grant is just one component of BIA-NJ's statewide Concussion in Sports campaign.
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