The UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program started a little more than a decade ago in a single room at the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine. What used to be the roof of that facility is now a 3,500 square foot space dedicated to the treatment of concussion.
“We’ve assembled a team of people here for assessment, treatment, rehabilitation, therapy for this injury," said Dr. Micky Collins, the clinical executive director of the concussion program. "It’s the first and largest program in the country devoted to this injury. There’s 1.8 to 3.6 million concussions occurring per year in this country, there’s a very strong need for clinics such as this.”
Collins and Dr. Mark Lovell started the program in 2000, at a time when, as Collins put it, smelling salts and a “how many fingers am I holding up” test predicated when an athlete could get back on the field.
During the first four of five years the program saw about three to five patients a week. At that time their work was less clinical and dedicated more to research.
“We developed the Impact Test, which is the largest and most widely utilized and more scientifically validated test there is, that’s the test we developed,” said Collins, “that test is now being mandated in the NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, it’s being used in 6,000 high schools across the country, it’s being used worldwide across all sport levels.”
And the clinic is now seeing about 15,000 patients per year. Collins said that number is expected to grow to 25,000-30,000 by 2014. The UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program has a 24-person staff dedicated to concussion and nine examination rooms at their new facility.
Collins highlighted the extensive research of concussion done by UPMC, and said they’ve studied the issue more than anybody, and have published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers on the subject. That has helped the knowledge of the injury come a long way from the days of smelling salts.
“I think that all that research we did, and many events in professional sports has led to this increased awareness that this is not something you want to mess with,” said Collins, “it is a brain injury after all.”
