It’s important that schools and sports teams understand what concussion is and what to do about it with their athletes and students.”Ĭhristie and his students recently used the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT) for baseline testing with a boxing team headed for a provincial championship. “You see a disruption in cognitive performance in the absence of any structural damage things aren’t working right, but there’s no obvious reason why. “Concussions are an unseen injury,” says Christie. The work could lead to an objective test for concussion, which doesn’t yet exist. When the trainer noted that players who didn’t do well with NeuroTracker were those who’d had a concussion, Christie wondered whether the game could be used to gauge the impact of a concussion.įast-forward five years, and Christie and his students in the Division of Medical Sciences have since used NeuroTracker to assess hundreds of individuals. The players were using NeuroTracker, a software program developed to improve performance in elite athletes. That’s when the issue of concussions emerged during a visit with training staff for the Vancouver Canucks. Until 2012, Christie’s research had been focused on how exercise benefits brain function. Research into the mysteries of concussion remains a priority for health professionals trying to better understand a complex condition, says University of Victoria brain researcher Brian Christie.īut educating families, schools and coaches on what’s already known is equally important to help protect children and youth in amateur sport from a concussion, a traumatic brain injury typically caused by a blow to the head or body.
Public awareness is essential to protect young athletes from the dangers of concussion Christie, with two volunteers using the NeuroTracker software.
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