Michigan High School Athletic Association Concussion Report - 2015-16

during the

2015

-16

school

year the

Michigan

High

School

Athletic

Association

conducted an unprecedented study of head injury

report

s from its member

school

s designed to quantify and further reduce future incidents of such injuries the mandated

report

ing came in from 99 percent of members senior

high

school

s and found that for the past

school

year 4452

concussion

s an average of five point nine per

school

or 1.6 per thousand participants took place the

Association

anticipates that various groups

will study the data to apply to equipment and game rules designed to make competition safer and will also work with the Youth Sports Institute at

Michigan

State University to develop coaches education programming around the results this will allow us for the first time to establish baselines by which will be able to measure our progress year over year in reducing head injuries in all of

school

sports and it will help us to raise questions that we will seek to get answers from with our research

partners across the state and perhaps the nation two-thirds of the verified

concussion

s occurred in competition twenty-eight percent of the concussed athletes returned to play in between six to ten days and another twenty percent required 11 to 15 days of rest perhaps most interesting was the fact that head injuries sustained by girls and boys in the same sport had a wide disparity in soccer 30 girls per thousand compared to 18 per thousand for boys in basketball 29 per thousand four girls

eleven thousand for boys and softball players

report

ed eleven

concussion

s per thousand four per thousand for baseball we hope to identify the physiological or social or psychological factors that contribute to this disparity and

report

ing of head injuries by boys and girls and we want to use the answers to these inquiries to better prepare

school

personnel especially coaches who may be coaching girls who are over

report

ing or boys under

report

ing in competitive interest clastic

athletic

s

football recorded the most

concussion

s vaalu by ice hockey eight player football girls soccer and girls basketball the collection is already underway for the new

school

year part of a sustained comprehensive

concussion

care program by the mhsaa it is also conducting the nation's largest sideline

concussion

testing program and was the first state

association

to provide

high

school

participants with

concussion

gap insurance designed to pay deductibles and co-payments left unpaid by other

policies we are addressing education and detection and aftercare in unprecedented ways we're proud of what we've done but we're far from satisfied we're going to continually be on the lookout for ways to make

school

sports even safer than they are already for the boys and girls who compete in educational

athletic

s

Michigan

was among the first state

association

s to adopt a return to play protocol which prohibits further competition on the same day of the suspected

concussion

and

that only allows the athlete to return with an unconditional sign off by medical personnel it's modified in season football practice full contact policies have been found in one study to reduce head impacts by over forty percent this is John Johnson

report

ing in East Lansing