Every year, the Montreal Children’s Hospital Emergency Department sees over 15,000 children and adolescents who have sustained a traumatic injury. Injuries sustained range from minor to fatal. Upwards of 500 of them are serious enough to require hospitalization and the interventions of the trauma specialists from 30 different departments.
Approximately 35% of trauma cases seen at the Montreal Children’s Hospital’s are related to recreational and sports activities, of which at least 1000 have sustained concussions.
The Montreal Children’s Hospital Concussion KiT was developed through the work of the Neurotrauma and Concussion/Return to Sports Programs as an educational initiative to increase the awareness of parents, athletes, coaches and sporting associations with respect to preventing, recognizing and managing concussions in sports.
We are pleased to provide you with our Concussion Kit developed in 2007.
The KiT is now available on-line. You can download the PDF documents and print them, just click on the link to access the PDF files of the following documents:
This Concussion KiT contains: 1.
A concussion guide for coaches, parents and the public at large :
In this document you will find the signs and symptoms of a concussion, what to do in case of a concussion, what to expect after having one and more useful advice.
2.
A coach’s concussion pocket card for quick reference:
It contains two quick tests to evaluate the player who is suspected of having sustained a concussion:
For the Memory Check: questions can be modified to make them specific to the sport.
For Cognitive Screening: Select any 5 words (an example is given).
- Avoid choosing related words such as dark and moon, which can be recalled by means of word association.
- Read each word at a rate of one word per second. The athlete should not be informed of the delayed testing of memory (to be done after the reverse months and/or digits.) Choose a different set of words each time you perform a follow up exam with the same athlete.
- Ask the athlete to recite the months of the year in reverse order, starting with a random month. Do not start with December or January. Note any months not recited in the correct sequence.
- For digits backwards, if correct, go to the next string length. If incorrect, read trial 2. Stop after incorrect on both trials.
3.
An athlete concussion card to guide athletes.
4. Sport specific return to play guidelines. Five step sport specific return to play action plan before you get back into the game:
We look forward to working together to keep our children and teens active and trauma-free.
CBC Television's host Sue Smith and Montreal Children's Hospital Trauma Director Debbie Friedman talk about Injury Prevention Tips to help keep your children safer. Click on the following link to watch a segment;
Injury Prevention: Concussions
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Reviewed by Trauma specialists at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.
Last updated: August 2010
