Concussion Program

Florida Orthopaedic Institute’s (FOI) unique concussion treatment and prevention program, with stories from young athletes who were treated for concussion at FOI.

When it first happened. I actually don’t know who, what happened. You can’t sometimes tell just by looking at someone if they have a concussion. I was in complete shock. I had, I was like, really? Are you serious? Oftentimes if you were to take a picture of it, like say an MRI or a cat scan there’s really nothing it would look normal. I just thought I had a headache and I just thought it wasn’t, I was sick.

But what does happen is that functionally they become the neurons, the actual cells associated with building our brain become injured and stop working and stop firing as they did before. It never crossed my mind that Michael could have had a concussion playing eighth-grade football.

Here at Florida Orthopaedic Institute I think we’re taking on the really the population general population, increased awareness of concussions brought on by all the injuries in the NFL and we’re establishing a concussion program through impact testing, baseline testing, and then further follow up. Children, adolescents, those under the age of 18 can take longer to recover from a concussion than an adult. And we need to consider that when we treat those high school students and below with concussions when they have the acute injury, we test them on the sidelines and then we test them weekly until they become symptom-free.

Whenever I go back out on the field, it’s always still back there. Just the hit, just nothing like, wow, you really don’t want a second one of those.

Maybe they lose an entire season or maybe lose a couple of weeks, but are able to play later. Absolutely healthier, longterm future is a, what is our ultimate goal? I’m 100%. I’m doing great.