News for Week of October 31, 1999
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Return-to-Play Guidelines Following Concussion
The Ontario Brain Injury Association (OBIA) has teamed with the Canadian Hockey Association (CHA) in an effort to raise the level of understanding and management of concussion in sports. A concussion is a change in mental status from a blow and may involve loss of consciousness. It is caused by a direct it to the head, a blow to the face or jaw and/or a whiplash effect of the neck. The OBIA/CHA standards describe symptoms and degrees of injuries with guidelines for returning to play after a player suffers a concussion. These have been adapted from the American Academy of Neurology Guidelines on the Management of Concussion in Sports.
A study presented on October 27 to the Alliance to Save Energy's School Energy Efficiency Task Force reported that student test scores improved as much as 20 percent in math and 26 percent in reading as a result of maximum exposure to daylight in their classrooms. The data represented 21,000 students in 3 school districts in California, Washington and Colorado. The best results were in schools that had well-designed skylights diffusing the daylight throughout the room and allowed teacher control of the amount of light. The executive summary of the report can be viewed at the Heschong-Mahone Group site. The group has also done a study in retail stores showing similar positive effects.
Updated October 31, 1999