All Articles by Lindsey Barton Straus, JD

in 2013, an Inter-Association Task Force for Preventing Sudden Death in Secondary School Athletics Programs published a series of recommendations, including urging all high schools to have an AT on staff to take care of emergency situations and provide care for student athletes.

While ankle sprains remain one of the most common injuries in sports, accounting for more than 45 percent of all athletic injuries according to some estimates, they are not all alike, so it is important that each patient have an individualized treatment plan, recommends a new position statement from the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA). 

Headaches are the most commonly reported symptom of concussion, but could be the result of a disorder called trauma-triggered migraines (TTMs) and not the result of a concussion, says a new case study and literature review.

A new study says that including the King-Devick test, a measure of fast eye movement, along with neurocognitive and balance testing as part of a battery of rapid concussion screening tools could improve assessment of athletes for suspected concussion on the sports sideline.

Children and adolescents with a previous history of concussion take significantly longer to recover, with those with histories of two or more previous concussions or whose injury occurred within the past year at even greater risk of prolonged symptoms, finds an important new study in the journal Pediatrics.

The suggestion in a new study that the high rate of concussions suffered by youth football players during games was because contact was being limited during practice has generated a firestorm of criticism from concussion researchers and youth football organizations.

Concussed adolescents have difficulty recovering the ability for high level thinking after injury and may require extended recuperation before full recovery of so-called 'executive function' is achieved, a new study finds, which adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that teenage athletes are particularly vulnerable to the lingering effects of concussion.

An important, and well-established, part of an assessment for concussion on the sports sideline under the most recent concussion guidelines is to test an athlete's orientation to time and place by asking the so-called "Maddocks questions."  Because they can be asked by anyone, they are valuable on sports sidelines where no health care professional trained in performing a full sideline screening for concussion is present.