Indiana schools are reporting student athletes experienced more than 1,200 concussion-related events during the five-month fall athletic season.
This is the first year the Indiana High School Athletic Association has asked schools to report the data. Reporting concussions to the IHSAA is still voluntary and about half of Indiana public high schools did so for the fall season.
Chris Kaufman, assistant commissioner of the IHSAA, says the events reported can include anything from headaches to full-blown concussions.
“Some of those people go back to participate in the same day,” Kaufman says. “Some are put back in to play in less than 30 days. Some are held out more than 30 days, and that’s kind of what we’re tracking right now.”
Kaufman says his organization wants to create a baseline to better understand the circumstances in which players are injured.
He says that, while he expected football to have the majority of concussive events, it’s eye-opening to see the number of injuries players suffer in sports like basketball and soccer, where athletes don’t wear protective headgear.
