Hackettstown – The practice has established The Concussion Center at The Orthopedic Institute of New Jersey. The goal at The Center is to educate, provide baseline testing, diagnose and treat patients who may have suffered a concussion. In recent years, a strong focus has been placed on the prevention and treatment of concussions. Many parents and athletes have been appropriately concerned about participating in sports, particularly those sports that have a higher potential for head injuries.  Among professional sports, a week rarely passes without an incident, lawsuit, or significant concern related to concussions and concussive care and testing. As more people become aware of the topic, better preventative care, treatment and proper plans for returning to action are being put in place and athletes should be taking advantage of this.   We believe that through the Concussion Center at our Practice, we can assist our patients to become better educated about this condition and provide them with state-of-the- art care. The medical evaluation of a concussion can be extremely complex because concussive injuries can affect many different parts of the brain. The development of computerized neuropsychological or baseline testing has become a very useful tool to evaluate an athlete’s memory, concentration and reaction times. Computerized neuropsychological testing does not replace or eliminate the need for a specialized doctor evaluation but it helps to standardize and simplify the return to play process. Athletes at any level who are tested before a season begins can establish a baseline related to his or her cognitive functioning.  If during the course of athletic participation an athlete suffers a possible concussion, they can then be retested to determine if there are any deficits.  Appropriate care can then follow.   Neuropsychological/BaselineTesting is conducted at The Orthopedic Institute of New Jersey by appointment. No athlete, coach or parent should ever consider a concussion to be an insignificant event. The majority of serious brain injuries related to a concussion occur when an athlete suffers repeat head trauma while still symptomatic from an undiagnosed concussion. Only a trained medical professional can evaluate a concussion and in New Jersey, only a physician with specialized concussion training can diagnose or rule out a concussion.

For additional information about concussions, you can contact The Orthopedic Institute of New Jersey at 908-684-3005 and request copies of the brochure, The Concussion Center at The Orthopedic Institute of N.J.