Blog

New Jersey Proposes Change to Head Injury Rules That Are Used for School Sports

Concussions and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) are very dangerous especially to school age children who play sports as an extra-curricular activity or even during gym.  Many times coaches and/or parents do not take blows to the head as seriously as they should and allow the child to continue playing sometimes even knowing that the child or teen has a concussion. 

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention more than 3.8 million people nationwide suffer concussions from sports related injuries and recreational activities annually and more than 400,000 of those concussions were due to high school students injured while playing high school sports. 

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA), the governing body of high school sports, met earlier this week to discuss what can be done to help lower the number of high school sports related brain injuries and how to avoid school aged children from developing permanent health problems or from being killed due to sports related injuries. 

The NJSIAA decided to meet and discuss the concerning issues that relate between high school sports and concussions because New Jersey currently has no specific policy on sport head injuries.  Individual schools are left to decide what policies they will have regarding sports related injuries and the details that come along with those policies.  This leaver certain schools properly caring for sport injuries and sitting the player out if they have suffered a concussion and leaves other schools allowing teens to play who have had multiple concussions throughout the year and even allows some of them to continue playing after showing signs of a concussion.

The NJSIAA is discussing putting a general policy in to practice that would apply to all New Jersey high schools and would require athletes who suffer from concussions to complete a series of test before returning to play a sport to ensure that they are not suffering from a concussion still and are indeed healthy enough to play which will help avoid permanent brain injuries to young athletes in New Jersey.

The reason the NJSIAA has recently decided to look more into this issue was after hearing there was a high school girl who played high school basketball and suffered a total of 11 concussions throughout the year and her parents, coach and school allowed her to continue playing and after the death of Ryne Dougherty who died after suffering trauma to the head while playing high school football and the school never changed their head injury policies even after the teen boy died.

Putting a general policy like this into effect will help ensure that teen athletes are being treated with their future and health in mind instead of just the "now" and will protect them from coaches and parents who are more worried about their child winning than their health.  It would cause there to be a general procedure that must be followed in order for a teen to continue playing after taking a blow to the head and would put teens through a battery of tests to ensure an already existing concussion is no longer present before playing.