Brain Injury Expert: ImPACT Test Has ‘Limited Sensitivity.’ Yes – And the Emperor Had ‘Limited Clothing.’

In “The scariest thing about the NHL concussion crisis,” http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news;_ylt=AlZyxi0ydOq7qBb9BqBKLWh7vLYF?slug=nc-cotsonika-scary_concussion_epidemic_121611, Yahoo Sports’ Nicholas J. Cotsonika notes that “you could create an all-star team of the concussed” this season. But, he adds, the National Hockey League “has been proactive on the concussion issue going back to 1997. It was the first league to introduce baseline testing and return-to-play protocol. It has had a concussion working group consisting of medical and hockey experts.”

Retired Philadelphia Flyer Keith Primeau tells Cotsonika that reform is “a baby steps process.”

Over at the New York Times “Slap Shot” blog, http://slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/concussion-roster-quickly-expands-again/, Jeff Z. Klein and Stu Hackel write:

The sheer number of players with concussions is disturbing enough, but what is perhaps equally disturbing is the news that at least three players passed Impact concussion evaluation tests yet were still suffering symptoms.

Crosby said his Impact test showed that he did not have a concussion, but he still felt bad enough to sit out. Pronger and Schenn also initially passed their Impact tests.

Impact is a commonly used assessment tool, but Dr. Robin Green, senior scientist at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and an expert in traumatic brain injury, said last week that such tests had “very limited sensitivity.”

She said that in a recent Quebec study, concussed subjects who recorded high Impact scores took more challenging experimental tests that showed them still to be significantly concussion-affected.

Irv Muchnick

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