http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/sports/ncaafootball/study-finds-many-athletes-are-still-taught-little-about-concussions.html 2014-10-22 20:51:25 Study Finds Many Athletes Are Still Taught Little About Concussions The Harvard study found that more than 90 percent of colleges say they now have a concussion management program, but that they lag in implementing aspects of the plan. === Four years after the A survey of 1,066 N.C.A.A. member institutions, 907 of which responded, found that more than 90 percent of universities said they had introduced a concussion management plan. But the colleges must do a better job of educating coaches and athletes on the risks of concussions and of increasing the size of their sports medicine staff, the survey found. The N.C.A.A. also needs to do more to monitor colleges to ensure that they are complying with its policy, which suggests that athletes suspected of sustaining a concussion be removed from play, medically evaluated and cleared by a physician before returning. Athletes should also be taught about concussions annually and acknowledge that they must report concussion symptoms to medical personnel. “Despite the rules being in place for four years, they’ve never been evaluated, and it is concerning that there are still N.C.A.A. schools without a concussion-management plan in place,” Christine Baugh, a lead author of the study, which was published Tuesday in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, said in a statement released by Harvard. The findings were released several weeks after Baugh and her colleagues published The research comes as new questions are being asked about whether coaches, trainers and doctors are doing enough to monitor football players for concussions. This season, at least three high school football players have died, including a 16-year-old from Long Island after an on-field collision. Last month, Michigan Coach Brady Hoke was In the study released Tuesday, Baugh and her colleagues found that 92.7 percent of colleges that responded to their survey had some type of concussion management program in place. And while 91.2 percent of colleges required their athletes to report their concussion symptoms, only 76.1 percent of colleges said they taught their athletes annually about how to identify them. Baugh and her colleagues also found that colleges were not required to tell the N.C.A.A. if they had a concussion management plan and “the entire compliance mechanism relies on schools self-reporting violations.” Ramogi Huma, the president of the College Athletes Players Association, called the study “disappointing, but not revealing.” “That’s what we’ve been screaming about the last several years and why we’re trying to unionize,” he said. “Players need leverage because schools and the N.C.A.A. haven’t shown enough interest in protecting them in a real way.” Like the N.F.L. and the N.H.L., the N.C.A.A. has come under fire for the way it has handled concussions. But because the association oversees so many colleges spread across the country, monitoring concussion policies has been more challenging. Former college players have also sued the N.C.A.A. for failing to do enough to protect them from the dangers of concussions. The association agreed to The settlement, which still must be approved by a judge, does not provide financial compensation for injuries but allows for individual players to sue for damages. At least one plaintiffs’ lawyer involved in the case criticized the agreement because it did not compensate athletes who were badly injured by concussions. The proposed settlement would establish a medical monitoring fund that would give all former college athletes a chance to receive a neurological screening to examine brain functions and any signs of brain damage like chronic traumatic Under the settlement, the N.C.A.A. would also introduce a series of head safety protocols, though they would not be legislatively binding unless approved through its legislative process. The new rules would include preventing athletes who have sustained a concussion from returning to a game or practice that day. Trained medical personnel would be required at all contact sports events like football, lacrosse, basketball, soccer and wrestling. Also in July, the Critics of the settlement questioned whether universities would vote to allow the N.C.A.A. to enforce any of the guidelines. The study released Tuesday underscored this criticism. Emily Kroshus, who wrote the study with Baugh, said that “providing athletes with