It is now widely recognized that stereotypic questions such as "how many fingers am I holding up?" and "where are you?" are of little diagnostic value to the sports medicine clinician in determining whether an athlete has sustained a concussion and, if so, determining the severity of the injury. Most are now aware of the importance of systematically assessing the injured athlete's mental status and neurocognitive functioning to detect deficits in orientation, memory and concentration after a concussion but simply lack an objective and systematic method for doing so.

Concussion Software

Neuropsychological testing and testing of mental status in order to determine the grade of a concussion can be performed using the Standardized Assessment Of Concussion (SAC), a brief screening concussion software instrument designed for the assessment of concussion by athletic trainers, coaches, and sideline medical personnel, to record and track (SAC), Standard Symptoms Checklist, and Balance Error Scoring System (BESS) results. Recent studies have shown that the use of the SAC has value in helping sports medicine professionals in the diagnosis and management of concussion in athletes on the sport sideline, particularly in identifying concussions in the 90% of cases where there is no loss of consciousness or other obvious signs of concussion.

The SAC gives the athletic trainer a convenient way to record SAC Baselines and post-injury follow-up measurements along with the Standard Symptom Checklist and BESS results. Once recorded, the SAC compares the Baseline to all follow-up measurements.