The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will develop a national protocol for the prevention and treatment of concussions in student-athletes, members of Congress announced last week.
The CDC’s action is a response to the Concussion Treatment and Care Tools, or ConTACT Act, which stalled in Congress last year. The bill would require the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to “establish concussion-management guidelines that address the prevention, identification, treatment, and management of concussions in school-aged children.”
The CDC will now call together a panel of experts that is expected to finalize guidelines and recommendations for pediatric mild-traumatic-brain injury, better known as concussions, by late 2013, according to U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-N.J. More than 30 states now have youth-concussion laws.
