Alpine Concussion Baseline Testing Announcement

Alpine Concussion Baseline Testing Announcement
Monday, October 30, 2023
Hello MAST Athletes and Families:
Sustaining a concussion while skiing is one of the risks that ski racers face with every run down a slope. The days of getting back up and returning to play immediately after having your “bell rung” are over. State law requires that coaches and trainers remove anyone suspected of having a concussion from athletic activity of any type. To return to play, the athlete must be assessed by a medical professional trained in concussion management. For Minneapolis students, the athletic trainer at your school must be involved in the post-concussion management and your return to play protocol. One of the tools that physicians and athletic trainers utilize to assess whether someone is healthy to begin the return to play protocol is an online cognitive test called the Impact Concussion Baseline Test. Athletes take this test when the brain is healthy and alert. Following a concussion and after the athlete’s concussion symptoms have resolved, the trainer may ask you to retake the Impact Concussion Baseline Test. The trainer can then compare your post-concussion test results to your baseline test results and determine if you are still suffering any cognitive deficits. Even though your symptoms have gone away and you feel healed, your brain may still be injured. You do not want to suffer a second concussion when your brain is still healing from the first. So, the baseline test is designed to give health professionals one more tool to assess how well your brain has healed following a concussion.
Who needs to take the test? 
1. Anyone who is skiing with MAST for the first time and has not taken the test for another sport during the 2022-23 school year or this Fall. 
2. If you took the test in 2021-2022, you need to re-take it. 
The trainers at Southwest, Washburn and Roosevelt have given me some dates for our athletes to take the concussion baseline test.
Anthony and Southwest Students
Test Date 1(for high school athletes):  Wednesday, November 1 at 3:30PM.
Test Date 2 (for middle school athletes): Wednesday, November 8 at 4PM.
Test Date 3(for anyone who still needs to take the test): Monday, November 13 at 3:45PM
Trainer:  Kelsey GleichWacker
Here are instructions about where the testing will be held in Southwest.
Directions: Location is at Southwest HS, in the College and Career Center. It’s the room adjacent to the counselors’ offices. If you come in the front entrance, go all the way to the back and left of the cafeteria. Go up the half flight of stairs, straight ahead is a room with lots of windows, go to the right of that room and immediately to the left is 3 steps. Go down the steps and through the door on the left.
Sanford and Roosevelt
Wednesday, November 8 at 4PM (for middle school and high school athletes)
Trainer: Sonya Eikum
Directions: My office is door 3A from the outside, or 159 from the inside. Walk past Door 4 and you will see a ramp. Go up the ramp. My door is at the top of the ramp. We will meet at my office and then go up to the computer lab together and take the test.
Justice Page, Washburn, Edison and South
I am waiting to hear back from the athletic trainers from these schools regarding dates and times for concussion baseline testing. I will send a follow up update as soon as I know these dates.
Two weeks to go! Are you registered with MAST? MPS? Do you have all of the equipment you need? Did you secure your season pass to Hyland? Are you getting your body in shape? Are you fundraising?  
Mark Conway
612-275-8392
[email protected]