Concussions have come into the forefront as a major issue within the world of sports today.
The studies of the causes and effects of this particular injury have been circulating around hard-hitting sports like football and boxing, and how those jarring hits can result in serious concussions that have severe impacts later on in that athlete’s career.
When this subject reached a wider audience, researchers expanded their work to look into other sports, which resulted in more serious attention being paid to the physiological health of the athletes within every field.
One of the problems with concussions is the fact that sometimes an athlete’s condition could be worsened if they are not fully recovered and ready to go back to playing, only to go back out and suffer another serious hit that makes their situation poorer.
The fact that the sports department at Piedmont College does well in keeping up with the knowledge and testing of this common ailment is what keeps their student athletes safe and sound.
All Piedmont College athletes are required to take a concussion test their freshman year.
If a player suffers a concussion during their sport, they are required to match the results of their previous testing score in order to be fully capable of going back out and participating.
This year, the athletic training department brought in a new test for concussions, which means that everyone, from freshman to seniors, had to retake the concussion test.
I am a junior on the Piedmont men’s basketball team, so I had to take the test again during my pre-season.
The test is online and is a series of 5 different sections that result in a total of a 30-minute test.
Most of the test is based around looking at words and specific shapes and remembering them over the course of the 30 minutes.
In addition, there were sections on memorizing colors. There was even a section that did get a few laughs out of me and some of my teammates, which was tapping the spacebar as fast as you can for 30 seconds.
Whatever score we received, was the benchmark score for us moving into our season.
If any one of us were to get a concussion, we would have to score the same or higher in order to compete again.
This precaution is in many ways frustrating for some athletes, who feel as though their body is fine, and they should be out there helping their teams win.
For others, they know that caution can prevent accidents and long-term trauma.
Concussions are impairments that should never be left untreated, and the athletic department here at Piedmont fully understands that.
These baseline tests ensure that we fully recover and are at our best after suffering an injury that could potentially hinder us on and off our game.