BRF to fund research that focuses on sports-related concussive injuries among young children

The Brain Research Foundation (BRF) today announced it will fund research that aims to improve pediatricians' ability to evaluate and manage sports-related concussive injuries among young children, and guide future research regarding the diagnosis, treatment and long term effects of these events.

Although clinical tools to measure concussive recovery are available, their efficacy is based on research with college and high school aged athletes. Post concussion cognitive tests have not been validated for use with grade school athletes. "Data is vitally needed to identify valid and reliable clinical tools pediatricians can use to measure concussive recovery in younger children," states Terre Constantine, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Foundation. "In time, this funding will help advance clinical practices when pediatricians face these injuries among younger patients. Through our work as an advocate of education around the long term effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) we have identified the gap in clinical tools for sports-related head injuries in grade school children."

Cynthia LaBella, M.D. will lead the research team. Dr. LaBella is the Medical Director for the Institute for Sports Medicine at Lurie Children's and Associate Professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. "As one of a small number of academic pediatric sports medicine departments in the country, we are intimately aware of the unique needs of children and adolescents suffering sports-related concussions," states Dr. LaBella. "We believe that BRF's grant will help mitigate some of the challenges pediatricians encounter while evaluating and managing concussions in this young population."