“Concussions and the Classroom” by Jan Hoffman

Just like the people who get them, concussions and their recovery times are, for the most part, individualized. The author of this article as well as the experts who give their testimony on the subject seem to come to the conclusion that most students who suffer concussions will make a complete recovery within three weeks. There are many medical tests that need to be conducted in order to predict an exact recovery time for each patient. However, since the focus of this article is the affects of concussions on students, the author concentrates on what teachers and parents can do to help mitigate patient discomfort. Some suggestions included allowing recuperating students to rest in the school nurse’s office when they experience head pain, allowing extra passing time between classes to accommodate for dizziness, and permitting the affected student to wear sunglasses indoors as to not agitate their temporarily inhibited tolerance to lights. The overall message of this article, though, is that concussions require slow, gradual recoveries, but will not permanently hinder a student’s athletic or academic performance afterward.

Although contact sports such as American football, soccer, and basketball, to name a few, have become prevalent school-supported activates in high schools across the U.S., I believe that coaches and the athletes themselves should proceed with more caution. As it stands, there are about 300,000 high school and college student concussions each year, and this number can be decreased if trainers and peers address proper athletic safety and sportsmanship as early as possible.