CFL adds sideline concussion-detection tests
League will provide data for NFL to have analyzed in cross-border deal
The CFL, in a new joint venture with the NFL announced Thursday morning, has added a new sideline concussion-detection test this season.
The CFL will share results of these King-Devick tests with the NFL, and the four-down league will help pay for post-season studies to determine whether the tests improve the ability to diagnose concussions.
The Toronto Sun was first to reveal the cross-border collaboration on Wednesday.
Only four of the CFL’s nine teams are conducting King-Devick tests: the B.C. Lions, Edmonton Eskimos, Calgary Stampeders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The test assesses cognitive function based on eye movement, and takes just two minutes.
The potentially concussed player reads out loud, as quickly as possible, single-digit numbers arrayed left to right in rows. The same numbers, in the same rows, then are shown to the player on a sequence of cards or iPad pages, which become more challenging to read as horizontal guidelines are removed and spacing becomes tighter.
Each Lions, Eskimos, Stampeders and Blue Bombers player took a baseline King-Devick test in the pre-season. When one suffers a suspected head trauma this season, either in a practice or game, his team’s athletic trainers or medical personnel will guide him through the King-Devick test immediately afterward, on the sideline.
The time he takes to complete the test then will be compared against his baseline time.
“This information, as well as a full medical evaluation, will help diagnose a concussion and subsequently remove a player from play,” said the NFL’s news release.
“Collaborations like this one with the NFL are going to provide some useful data to help assess the ongoing advancement of technology and research in support of player safety,” Kevin McDonald, the CFL’s VP of football operations, said in a statement. “Working together on initiatives such as this ultimately serves a primary objective which is the health and safety of our players.”
Added Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, co-chair of the NFL’s medical committee on head, neck and spine injuries: “Advancing the science around concussion diagnosis, prognosis and treatment to improve player health and safety is our priority. We engage with the leading international experts and sports leagues to pursue that goal.
“We are grateful to the CFL, their teams and players for implementing the King-Devick Test this season to determine whether this protocol improves diagnosis and can make football, and all sports, safer.”
Both leagues have been sued by former players — many suffering from CTE, the degenerative brain disease — over alleged improper concussion management in years and decades past.
Both leagues have drastically improved their respective concussion-management protocols over the past few years.
Most recently, the NFL, starting this month with pre-season games and continuing through the regular season and playoffs, will have a designated pressbox spotter buzz the side judge to stop the game, if he or she suspects a player has been concussed but hasn’t been removed from action.
That player will be escorted to the sideline and medical staff will conduct concussion-protocol testing, either there or in the locker-room.
The CFL introduced a concussion-detection protocol in 2011, based on international standards, to remove concussed players from action that day and subsequently prevent their return to both practices and games until medically cleared.
Both leagues in recent years have introduced playing-rules changes to make the game safer, and reduce chances of concussions occurring.
The test assesses cognitive function based on eye movement, and takes just two minutes.