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Ivy League leads concussion policy changes

Ivy League leads concussion policy changes

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Created on Saturday, 31 March 2012 14:43
Last Updated on 26.04.2012
Published Date
Reducing the number of concussions suffered by student-athletes is on the minds of many, including those that lead some of the most prestigious universities in the nation. Soon, following in the footsteps of changes made last year to Ivy League football programs, athletes in other sports may see the adoption of more protective measures as well.
Ivy League football players saw significant changes in their practices last season after the eight presidents, two of whom are medical doctors, acted to reduce the number of impacts to their student-athletes' brains in an effort to minimize concussions. In July 2011 the Ivy League Concussion Committee developed a new set of regulations limiting full-contact practices to two per week, three less than allowed by the NCAA. In addition, of the preseason "two-a-days" only one can be full contact.
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Similar sport-specific regulations may be applied to other activities such as lacrosse, hockey, and soccer in the near future.

“We are leading other conferences,” said Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris. “I don’t know of any conference looking at this in the same manner that we are. We really see this as an area that we can be a leader in terms of the medical care safety of our athletes as well as in terms of the research we contribute to our collective understanding of concussions and athletics,” according to the The Harvard Crimson.

Ivy League Deputy Executive Director Carolyn Campbell- McGovern was apart of this game change, “A lot of the recommendations from the football report were naturally going to be applied to other sports as well, particularly the education components, sideline testing components, and any other of those types of enhancement,” Campbell-McGovern said.

Recommendations for each sport, lacrosse, soccer, and hockey, will likely be different. On Wednesday, the Ivy League Concussion Committee met in New York to discuss what changes will be made. The committee will also review recommendations made by each sport's subcommittee.
Athletic trainers, including Harvard Head Athletic Trainer Brant Berkstresser, physcians, and administrators make up the concussion committee. It is co-chaired by presidents David Skorton of Cornell, and Jim Kim of Dartmouth.

Harvard Medical School instructor and doctor at Children's Hospital Boston's Division of Sports Medicine, Michael J. O'Brien has ideas for change. He says he sees 300-400 concussions every month, 98 percent of them sports-related.

“The bigger risk is the athlete who gets injured, flies under the radar a little bit and gets a hit a few more times in that game or in the next two or three games. The injuries to that athlete tend to be exponential, their threshold to injury is much worse, and the damage is exponential. Using computer based testing to get objective information rather than just reporting symptoms would help," O'Brien said.
Source: Ivy League Aims to Abate Concussions - The Harvard Crimson March 30, 2012
Questions/comments? contact Jean Rickerson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


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