High school football player recovers from concussion

Playing contact sports can come with some serious injuries like concussions.

But how do you know when a player is well enough to get back on the field?

A new medical tool is giving doctors a helping hand when it comes to concussion recovery.

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Trent Green is just one of many professional athletes who have suffered a serious concussion.

It not only happens to the pros, but amateur and student athletes are also at risk.

"If I had been back in a week like I thought I would be able to do, I would probably be out with permanent brain damage," Aron Russell said.

The 15-year-old plays football for Desert Mountain High School in Scottsdale. He suffered a concussion during a football practice back in September.

"I was just running the ball, standing up," Aron said. "He came up and hit me here in my chin and I went down."

Aron suffered memory loss and had trouble concentrating.

He was referred to Dr. David Carfagno with Scottsdale Sports Medicine Institute.

"There's been over 25 criteria out there in the literature so when an athlete would come in, the literature was basically looking at the criteria for grades one, two and three," Carfagno said.

Grade one would be a mild concussion and grade three would be the worst, where a person may be knocked out after a blow to the head.

One of the medical tools Carfagno is using to evaluate recovery following a concussion is a software program called IMPACT, which stands for Immediate Post Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Tool.

"It's an excellent sideline tool as well as a tool to use post-concussion," Carfagnos said. "We recommend that any athlete with his history of concussion get a baseline, then we can compare the baseline numbers to see if have concussion. We can then compare the two and actually see the two deteriorations in baseline numbers."

The test asks the athlete a series of questions that helps look at their memory, reaction time and processing speed.

"Every time I did it I was thinking I should be able to do this stuff, it's elementary, but I had a mental block and wasn't able to do it," Aron said.

Carfagno said that Aron had one of the lowest scores he had seen in a long time.

So after doing the IMPACT test a couple more times and using other tools like an MRI and CAT scan, Aron was finally cleared to suit up a month after his concussion.

And now that he's back playing, he looks at football througha new set of eyes.

"Be careful while you're playing," Aron said. "Try and protect your head. It's just too important to lose. It's better to have a broken arm than a concussion."