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"Sustaining concussions when participating in sports happens frequently. As we reported in our blog Youth Sporting Injuries - Can Someone Be Liable?, 12 percent of athletes said they had suffered either concussions or head injuries in 2013. Since participating in sports with concussions is so very dangerous, we are reporting here about a recent study done by New York University," said Fort Myers Sports Injury Attorney, Randall Spivey of Spivey Law Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.A.

According to a study titled Adding Vision to Concussion Testing: A Prospective Study of Sideline Testing in Youth and Young Athletes published in The Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology in March 2015, the New York University Langone Concussion Center found using flash cards to determine whether student athletes had suffered concussions after being injured during games had a 95 percent accuracy. 

They tested 243 hockey and lacrosse team players and 89 college athletes at the beginning of the study using flash cards to see how quickly and accurately they could read the numbers on the cards. The eye exams were repeated later in the season on 12 of those players in the control group who had concussions. The average time on the flash card tests was 5.2 seconds slower than the average time prior to the concussions. They also tested 14 athletes who had not been injured, and their average time on the test was 6.4 seconds faster than before.

The study author, Dr. Steven Galetta said, "In the youth leagues in particular, when there may not be doctors or athletic trainers on the sidelines when a kid gets hit, this enables parents with proper training to participate in the preliminary assessment of concussions. It's so affordable and easy to administer that any coach or parent could use it to determine when an injured child can return to the game and when they need to sit out."

The primary care sports medicine director at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Dr. Robert Dimeff, feels that one of the advantages of the rapid vision test is the ease with which it can be administered. Although, Dr. Dimeff said the hardest thing to control for in this test is the kids who may deliberately go slower at the baseline testing if they know it can be used to pull them out of games later. "This vision test is one piece of the puzzle, not the only piece."

Before conducting the Langone Concussion Center study, researchers were aware of similar testing being done by trainers who worked with adult athletes in boxing and mixed martial arts. Sports where concussions are common. In these sports they were using the standardized assessment, King-Devick test. This test has the athlete read slightly jumbled lines of numbers which are printed on three cards. According to a New York Times article, "A Simple Flashcard Test to Detect Concussions" by Gretchen Reynolds, the King-Devick test measures rapid eye movement, visual tracking and related cognitive responses. It is used on injured adults. If the adults read the numbers more slowly after impact than in the baseline testing, the adults are considered to have sustain a concussion.

King-Devick Concussion Test

"If you, or a loved one has suffered a concussion as the result of participating in a sport or in an accident, we encourage you to seek legal advice as to whether you may have a legal case," said Attorney Spivey.

Fort Myers Sports Injury Attorney,,  Randall L. Spivey is a Board Certified Trial Attorney – the highest recognition for competence bestowed by the Florida Bar and a distinction earned by just one (1%) percent of Florida attorneys.  He has handled over 2,000 personal injury and wrongful death cases throughout Florida.  For a free and confidential consultation to discuss your legal rights, contact the Spivey Law Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.A., in Lee County at 239.337.7483 or toll free at 1.888.477.4839,or by email to Randall@SpiveyLaw.com.  Visit SpiveyLaw.com for more information.  You can contact Spivey Law Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.A.in Charlotte County at 941.764.7748 and in Collier County 239.793.7748.