(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Last week several leading healthcare providers from around the country met at Aspetar, Qatar's orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital, for a workshop to discuss the challenges they face and recommended approaches when identifying and treating concussion injuries among players in various sports, particularly football, handball and athletics.
When dealing with a concussion injury during a match or event, healthcare providers can sometimes face pressure and even scrutiny from team managers and athletes themselves, if they request that a star player be taken off a match or if they prevent an athlete who is yet to make full recovery from returning to play in time for an important event.
Realising the severity of concussion injuries and the potential short and long-term consequences, organisations, federations and leagues such as the National Football League (NFL) in the United States have put in place legal protocols and procedures that enable healthcare providers to take a player off the pitch immediately if they have major concerns. As a result of such steps, it is now a criminal offence in the US should a coach or doctor in the NFL not follow the League's concussion policy.
Yet that is not the case in all sports. In Association Football for example, the guidelines are less clear-cut. There is no unified approach to take when a member of the medical staff spots a concussion injury. Sometimes coaches or players themselves can interfere and refuse to stop playing.
Argentinian football player Javier Mascherano for example refused to be taken off and was allowed to return immediately to the game, despite sustaining an apparent head injury during the 2014 World Cup semi-finals in Brazil, sparking controversy.
The workshop drew on the expertise of Aspetar's staff in the field of sports medicine in covering a range of concussion-related topics and the implications for athletes in Qatar specifically, as well as around the world. Most of the approaches and protocols discussed related to those developed at the Fifth International Conference on Concussion in Sport held in Berlin in 2016. Discussion focused on players' autonomy, shared decision making, the effects of match schedules on players' recovery as well as the ethical and legal issues surrounding the treatment of concussion.
Speaking on the sidelines of the workshops, Dr. Louis Holtzhausen, a Sports Medicine Physician at Aspetar with more than 25 years of experience treating players in athletics, rugby, cricket, hockey and the South African Olympic team, said: 'First of all, concussion is a brain injury with potentially very serious short and long term implications. It is sometimes called the ‘hidden injury' because patients don't bleed or limp, so we can't physically see the symptoms, making it very difficult to diagnose even for a doctor. That's why a very important part of this concussion programme is to make people aware and educate them about recognising concussion symptoms more generally. This includes the general public.
'Concussion also affects performance, which is something players and coaches need to be aware of. A team's star player will not be a star player on the day if he's concussed.
'They will be off balance or their reaction time might be slower, and that might mean the difference between winning and losing a match. Everyone fights to get them back on the field, but if we get them back on the field and they're not ready, they will be useless.
'It's understandable, no player wants to be taken off. He feels a little bit shaken but he thinks he's okay and he doesn't really know that he's off balance. So that is why the key thing is to educate them about the seriousness of a concussion injury. At the end of the day, the doctor is trying to protect them.
'Of course, there should also be support from the relevant sports federations as well. As far as I'm concerned, if there's not a policy in place, none of this would work.
Commenting on Aspetar's second concussion workshop, Dr. Holtzhausen added: 'This second workshop builds on the knowledge we developed during the first workshop we organised which took place back in November 2017. After the first workshop, we had discussions with team doctors and various parties, and identified a few gaps in knowledge and recommended approaches to assist them. So today we came and presented an updated concussion programme that is specially customised to Qatar for them to use.
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