Schools

Township Board Debates Concussion Policy

Mandated steps for injured students may not include having athletes tested first.

When school boards discuss head injuries and concussions students may experience playing sports, it's helpful to have the advice of experts.

In this instance, Warren Township's board of education is lucky to have board President Gregory Przybylski, director of neurosurgery at JFK Medical Center in Edison.

Dr. Przybylski's knowedge of the field—and relationships with others—may help guide the final verison of a new policy regarding the district's handling of student athletes who suffer head injuries.

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The policy is required as part of a statewide effort to reduce the long-term problems caused by insufficient treatment of concussions.

At Monday's meeting, board member Sue Burman asked why the policy did not include a recommendation or requirement for students to have a baseline test done as part of their sports physicals. Some districts are encouraging the tests to offer a comparative point if a student is injured.

Find out what's happening in Warrenwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"People (who) play hockey, people play real contact sports typically have a baseline test done first," Board member James Sena, wh supported having the test required, said. "So that if they're injured, there's a comparison done."

Sena said there are companies which can offer the test online, then store the results for when a comparison to how a student functions after an injury.

But Dr. Przybylski questoned whether or not such tests were valid as a baseline, questioning whether there was "inter- or intra-observer reliability" in the tests' administration.

He added he thought the board needed more information before approving the policy, and when questioned whether or not he thought the baseline tests could be administered, he said it's possible to do baseline MRI or baseline clinical observation tests.

"I don't know it has any clinical usefulness," he added. "If a test has no future basis of predictability, then the test is irrelevant.

"I don't know that there is a standard cognitive battery of tests that is used as a comparison for concussive injury," Dr. Przybylski said.

The board agreed to table the policy while Dr. Przybylski checks with pediatric neurosurgeons and others at his clinic to find out if such tests would be beneficial, and other districts' policies are reviewed.  


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