Overview

graphic of man holding hurt head with brain glowing red

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Once a is identified, your focus is to manage the injury to prevent potentially catastrophic outcomes. Managing the concussion involves more than just treating the injury. The goal of a is:

to maximize recovery and prevent long-term and chronic manifestations of issues, to pull everything together for the recovery team comprised of the patient, parents, school and athletic personnel, and you, the licensed health care professional.

Module 5 Content

	PRIMARY V. SECONDARY PREVENTION
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Primary Prevention

In concussion management, the purpose of is to minimize further exposure to risk by educating coaches, athletes, and parents.

As part of that education process, emphasize to all that there is no such thing as a "concussion-proof helmet". But also emphasize that it is essential to:

Use proper, well-fitted safety equipment, such as helmets, headgear, and mouthpieces.

Teach proper playing techniques to reduce risks during play.

Advocate sport-wide rule changes as needed to mitigate undue risks during play.

Enforce existing rules.

Courtesy ThinkStock: paleka19 & hanzl

Courtesy ThinkStock: Vicente García Marín de Es

Secondary Prevention

seeks to prevent the establishment or progression of a chronic condition after injury exposure. The procedures you learn in this module to detect and treat pre-clinical pathological changes will help minimize long-term difficulties and accomplish secondary prevention.

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Primary
Prevention
Secondary
Prevention

Concussion Management is Critical

As discussed earlier in this course, appropriate medical management avoids exposing the athlete to serious risks. When managing concussions, the potential impacts of such risks may fall into one or more of these categories:

IMPACT

Examples

Medical

Second Impact Syndrome.
Subconcussive blows / repeat impacts / cumulative concussions.
Post-concussion symptoms, such as chronic headaches.

Athletic

Poorer brain and / or motor function.
Missed practices.
Difficulty processing information.
Diminished performance with subsequent increased risk of injuring self or others.

Vocational /
Educational

Prolonged absence that lowers achievement levels and requires costly, time-consuming, difficult make-up work.

Social

(how others see the patient)

Relationship problems.
Damage to the patient’s support systems.

head with symbols coming out, representing emotions

Emotional /
Behavioral

In younger youth:

Acting out behaviors.
Sleep disruption.

In older youth:

Depression.
Anxiety.
Irritability.
Mood issues.
Sleep disruption.