{"id":3157,"date":"2014-08-12T06:52:02","date_gmt":"2014-08-12T12:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/?p=3157"},"modified":"2014-08-12T07:04:57","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T13:04:57","slug":"pt-professor-lends-expertise-to-story-in-nashville-medical-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/2014\/08\/12\/pt-professor-lends-expertise-to-story-in-nashville-medical-news\/","title":{"rendered":"PT professor lends expertise to story in Nashville Medical News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Pat Sells, Associate Professor of Physical Therapy, lent his expertise to a recent story posted in Nashville Medical News<\/a> about a new Tennessee law designed to reduce youth sports concussions.\u00a0\u00a0 The story, Identifying & Preventing Concussions Now a Statewide Effort<\/em>, written by Melanie Kilgore-Hill is linked here<\/a>.\u00a0 Dr. Sells’ comments from the story are included below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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While the law is a step in the right direction, Belmont University professor and exercise physiologist Patrick Sells, DA, said getting athletes to actually fess up to possible injury is the toughest part.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cKids are hesitant to tell you if they took a blow to head because they know what the ramifications are and how long they could be out of the game,\u201d Sells said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen kids go head-to-head or head-to-ground with no headache reported and find out later on they were afraid of the repercussions. That\u2019s the competitive spirit of an athlete \u2013 they don\u2019t want to quit because of injury \u2026 so as a parent, coach or doctor, you have to take measures to get kids to buy into this.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Sells said it\u2019s essential to educate athletes on the importance of telling an adult when something isn\u2019t right. He stresses to students, parents and coaches the importance of being able to identify key symptoms including headache, confusion, difficulty remembering or paying attention, balance problems or dizziness, loss of consciousness, feeling sluggish, nausea or vomiting, or blurry vision. He also encourages parents to understand the qualification of the league and the system children are playing under and to take the time to verify the coaches understand risks and Tennessee\u2019s newest sports concussion law.<\/em><\/p>\n

Identifying and preventing concussions is of special interest to Sells, who has performed baseline tests on local youth football leagues pre- and post-season to determine changes in memory recall. He said several area schools are wising up and offering similar testing to athletes as a standard practice. Another tool used to gauge players\u2019 health is a specially designed football helmet that measures the G-force behind each hit.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ultimately the responsibility of the school, athletic league and state organization to ensure coaches are knowledgeable about designing safer practices, hydration, and concussion signs and symptoms,\u201d Sells said. \u201cCoaches especially need to be well versed in a multitude of assessments in order to make that decision as there\u2019s not one certain way to tell if a player might be in trouble.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Pat Sells, Associate Professor of Physical Therapy, lent his expertise to a recent story posted in Nashville Medical News about a new Tennessee law designed to reduce youth sports concussions.\u00a0\u00a0 The story, Identifying & Preventing Concussions Now a Statewide … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chs","category-physical-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3157"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3166,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3157\/revisions\/3166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forum.belmont.edu\/health\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}