Bill Heinz is the handsome square-jawed, plain-speaking medical orthopedist from Maine who chairs the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee of the National Federation of State High school Associations.  Here, in my words, is what Dr. Heinz had to say about concussions last month in Indianapolis in a ballroom full of staff members and attorneys for statewide athletic associations from across the United States.

About Prevention –

• No equipment can prevent concussions in any sport.  What can reduce such head trauma is to diminish the frequency and severity of contact to the head.
• In football, that requires officials’ strict enforcement of current rules, coaches’ teaching of blocking and tackling consistent with those rules, and rules makers’ continuing search for ways to reduce the frequency of the game’s most dangerous situations.

About Aftercare –

• No pharmaceutical remedy exists for concussions.  The remedy is time.  Only complete rest – from both academic and athletic activity – begins the recovery process; and then return to such activity must be gradual, and under the care of trained health care professionals.

That has been and will continue to be our message to our constituents in Michigan.

(Click here for our recent communication reinforcing the state laws that take effect in Michigan on June 30, 2013.)