Anyway, welcome to summer!
As we get ready for the heat and begin preparations for the return of fall seasons, this is my chance as a high school athletic trainer to go out and continue to learn. I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to attend a conference in PIttsburgh, Pa. that was presented my the UPMC staff on concussions.
The course was an update as to what has changed in the last few years and a glimpse of some of the more promising research for the future. I was particularly excited to see a demonstration of a new MRI technique that showed an extremely high definition picture of the the brain being scanned. The potential for this technology os extremely promising and it would be a welcome addition to the arsenal of diagnostic tools.
The most exciting thing that I heard that weekend is that there will be an iOS and android version of the new SCAT3 test available this fall. I am hoping that the test will be released in the iTunes Store before August 1st, which is our start date. However, there was no definite date given and it could be released much later in the season. I guess I'll have to stick to the paper and pencil version for now.
The conference also pointed out that the SCAT3 does not include any testing for the vestibular system and it was the strong opinion of the UPMC crowd that this oversight needs to be corrected. Visual tracking and looking for nystagmus is one thing, but testing the cicadic movements of the eyes and other forms of visual tracking are also important. These additional tests don't require much more time or training to perform and should be included in an evaluation.
There was also some discussion about the upcoming and long promised pediatric version of ImPACT. A preview of the format was given and, as expected, it is more game like than the original adult version. There was a focus given to avoid reading as much as possible especially since this is designed to be taken by 5 year old children.
The thing that surprised more than anything with ImPACT is that they talked about being able to take the adult version of the test as early as age 10. Previously, I had heard that the minimum age was 13. However, the UMPC group did recognize that the normative data for this 10-12 year olds needs to be separated out from the adult scores since there is a large difference in the scores. Needless to say, I am happy that I will be able to offer the test to my middle school children now, but that does involve a lot more work too.
Now I did say in my opening paragraph that this was about summer seminars. The other big seminar I am attending this year is in Las Vegas for the National Athletic Trainers Association convention. In fact, I am writing this blog post while en route. I hope to have more to share after what should be a fun week in sin city.
