By William Adams, PhD, ATC, Vice President of Sport Safety
This past weekend, KSI’s Vice President of Sport Safety William Adams, PhD, ATC and Director of Communication and Education Yuri Hosokawa, MAT, ATC were in attendance at the first annual concussion summit held at Colby College, hosted by the Concussion Institute at Colby College. They joined representatives from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, as well as faculty members from the University of New Hampshire, University of Pittsburgh, Colby College and others.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the diagnosis and management of concussion and to establish the next steps that are needed from a research perspective to enhance clinician’s objective assessment of concussion in athletes. The meeting concluded with an action plan to examine specific areas of concussion diagnosis and management to continue to add to the body of scientific literature surrounding the validity and reliability of tools that clinicians can use in their toolbox for concussion management.
Following the concussion summit, KSI traveled south to Portland, Maine for the Beach to Beacon Road Race. The race weekend began with the medical symposium, where both William Adams and Yuri Hosokawa were two of the invited speakers. Adams spoke on hydration in today’s athletes while Hosokawa presented a case series examining the treatment and management of two exertional cases recently published by Stearns et al. in Current Sports Medicine Reports. The symposium was a huge hit and was extremely well received by all of the attendees.
The road race occurred on Saturday in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. For those unfamiliar, Beach to Beacon is a 10-kilometer (6.1 mile) road race finishing at the picturesque Portland Headlight Lighthouse in Fort Williams. KSI staff members William Adams, Yuri Hosokawa and Samm Scarneo had the opportunity to volunteer as medical staff during the race. The day finished off with roughly 6,500 runners finishing the race and the medical volunteers providing excellent care to those needing it, including four individuals who had suffered exertional heat stroke. The best part of the race weekend were the new friendships that were made with the other physicians, nurses and athletic trainers who were also volunteering in the medical tent.
