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Ben Averkamp, Loyola?s star senior forward, suffered a concussion in mid-January last season, forcing him to sit out more than a week of the men?s basketball season.
?It?s one of the most frustrating injuries you could have,? said the 21-year-old biology major.
According to Averkamp, his concussion occurred during a Friday night game, but he said the symptoms didn?t show up until the following morning. He took the concussion test on Sunday and failed it, based on the baseline test he took when he came in as a freshman. Averkamp sat out the following week and even after seeing a neurologist the next Monday, he wasn?t cleared until the next Thursday, 13 days after the injury occurred.
Averkamp?s concussion was one of the estimated 3.8 million concussions that occur yearly from athletic or recreational activities, according to a statistic on the Loyola Medicine website. Of those concussions, almost 50 percent of them go undiagnosed.
However, despite the prevalence of concussions in athletics, Loyola does not provide trainers for some sports? practices or games due to funding. Funding is the big difference in the battle against concussions between the varsity athletics and club athletics, a disparity that is recognized by athletes.
?It?s a funding issue,? Averkamp pointed out. ?You have to make that investment to have trainers there for practices, but it would be hard for [the club sports] to have enough funds for that.?
At the club level, athletes don?t have the benefit of having full-time trainers at the practices or all of the competitions.
Club sports at Loyola include the concussion-prone sports of football, rugby, hockey, lacrosse and women?s soccer. Even Ultimate and Quidditch have had athletes with documented concussions.
Football, for example, which is in its first year at Loyola since the 1970s, had no one at practices keeping track of injuries, according to junior Paul Canavati, an offensive and defensive lineman.
?It was just coaches who watched for injuries, no medical staff,? said the 21-year-old English major.
Canavati said the coaches taught players the proper tackling technique to avoid concussions.
?Playing the line, I needed to use my hands a lot,? Canavati said about the proper technique. ?Coach said if you lead with your head, he?s pulling you out. But a lot of guys [on other teams] still led with their head.?
Women?s soccer had trainers at games this past fall, but didn?t at practices or the year before at games when they had one player suffer a concussion. The men?s lacrosse team?s medical staff consists of two players who are EMT-certified.
Ultimate does not have trainers at practices either, said senior captain Griffin Muckley, a 21-year-old English major, but there are usually a couple at tournaments, provided by the host school.
Men?s rugby had three players suffer concussions this past season, including senior team president David Moreira, who said he suffered his second from playing rugby.
?My concussion was diagnosed on the field but the other players who suffered concussions were diagnosed a few days later by our coach, who is a chiropractor,? Moreira said.
?For our practices, Loyola doesn?t provide any trainers. There are one or two Halas student employees who I think are trained in CPR but that?s about it,? Moreira said. ?However, for games it is mandatory to have a trainer and they provide one from Novacare. The school pays for the trainer but out of the budget each team is allocated.?
The Novacare trainers are provided through a relationship that Campus Recreation has with Loyola athletics, according to Megan Morris, the Intramural and Club Sports Coordinator. Novacare is a national rehabilitation service that is based in over 30 states and provides certified athletic trainers to high school and collegiate athletic events.
?They provide services to our clubs at many of their home matches and games,? Morris said. ?We try to have coverage at all club home games, but make sure to have them at [rugby, hockey and football] due to the higher risk of injuries.?
Trainers are important to have at competitions because some athletes may not know why concussions occur or what the symptoms of concussions are.
A concussion is a brain injury that occurs when the head hits an object or is struck by a moving object, causing the brain to move about inside of the skull. The Loyola Medicine website states that the top causes of a concussion are falls, athletic injuries and vehicle accidents. Symptoms of a concussion include, but are not limited to, loss of consciousness, nausea, dizziness, seeing lights and headaches.
When they don?t feel any symptoms, however, the athletes might continue playing, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will suffer a second concussion. Although the science on concussions is still improving, it is known that athletes who have suffered one concussion are more prone to suffer another concussion and the less time there is between concussions, the more likely it is that the ensuing concussion will be more severe.
?The long-term consequences of one or two concussions is not clear, but we do know that repetitive head trauma can cause long-lasting neurological injury? said Dr. Matthew McCoyd, an assistant professor of neurology in the Stritch School of Medicine, in a press release on Loyola Medicine?s concussion treatment for high school athletes.
As recently as the 1990s, athletes would be deemed to have had ?their bell rung? or were ?seeing stars? instead of being diagnosed with a concussion. The most popular treatment method, if one was administered, would be smelling salts. However, due to the attention concussions have been receiving with former NFL players, treatments have changed in recent years.
Concussions have been linked to a spate of suicides among former NFL players in recent years, most notably future Hall-of-Famer Junior Seau, who died in 2012 at the age of 43.
The common thread among the players who committed suicide is that they have been linked to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain that stems from a history of repetitive brain trauma from concussive, or continued subconcussive, blows to the head, according to the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. The symptoms of CTE include memory loss, confusion, impulse control problems, depression and dementia among others.
The documentary Head Games, released in 2012, attempted to shine more light on the topic by showing brains of people who suffered from CTE. Head Games stressed the importance of being aware of the impact concussions have on athletes at levels below the professional level, from college to high school to even younger than that.
With that knowledge, the athletic department at Loyola has taken steps to ensure that all protective measures are taken. Assistant athletic trainer Chris Konior said that the department? administers impact testing for all incoming athletes at Loyola except for those in the non-contact sports of golf, cross country and track and field. The impact test is the neurocognitive baseline test that Averkamp failed last year following his concussion.
?We have the athletes retake the test when their symptoms clear,? said Konior, a 20-year veteran at Loyola. ?But it?s not an end-all for allowing them to participate again. The team physician has final say on clearance.?
Konior said that Loyola makes sure there is at least one trainer at every practice and game.
?That way, we hope that we see [a concussion] happen,? said Konior. ?Most of the time, we do, but if we don?t, we rely on teammates, coaches or the players to let us know.?
Averkamp recalled a time when the trainer spotted a concussive blow during practice and took action.
?Last year, [former men?s basketball player] Denzel [Brito] got pulled after a hard hit and missed a few practices,? he said.
When a possible concussion occurs, Konior said the trainer asks the athletes a series of questions and administers a test of balance and memory, along with a neurological test.
That test is done to protect an athlete who might have suffered a concussion from going back into competition and risking a second concussive blow.
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by Brendan Bond
bbond@luc.edu
Source: http://www.loyolaphoenix.com/loyolas-own-head-games-concussions-in-athletics
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