Tag Archive for: youth sports

Gerard Gioia

Concussion prevention and better management of youth concussions headline Sports Neuropsychology Society Concussion Symposium

Gerard Gioia

Gerard Gioia, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert in pediatric concussion management, was named president of the Sports Neuropsychology Society at the conclusion of this year’s meeting.

“We know how critical it is to identify and appropriately treat every concussion, particularly when they happen early in an athlete’s career,” Children’s National President and CEO Kurt Newman, M.D.,  told a crowd of nearly 300 sports concussion experts gathered in Washington, D.C. for the Sports Neuropsychology Society’s (SNS) 6th Annual Concussion Symposium.

Children’s National served as a title sponsor of the conference, which serves as the annual meeting for SNS. Each year, members from around the world meet to share best practices in sports-related concussion management through presentation of evidence-based studies on a wide range of related topics. This year’s presentations included topics such as:

  • Sex differences in sport-related concussion: Incidence, outcomes and recovery
  • Concussion Clinical Profiles and Targeted Treatments: Building the Evidence
  • Legislative advocacy and the sports neuropsychologist
  • Treatment of concussion in kids: What we know, what we think we know, and what we need to learn

“This meeting and its agenda, held in D.C. where we’ve done so much work on understanding concussion management for children, is particularly meaningful for me because it really drives home our key message of a link between active participation in sports, appropriate recognition, management of youth concussions and the developing  athlete’s brain health,” says Gerard Gioia, Ph.D., division chief of neuropsychology and director of the Safe Concussion Outcome, Recovery and Education (SCORE) program at Children’s National.

Dr. Gioia, an internationally recognized expert in pediatric concussion management, was named president of the society at the conclusion of this year’s meeting, which was held in Washington, D.C. from May 3-5, 2018. During his two year term, he will work with members to advance the mission of SNS, which seeks to advance the field of neuropsychology to generate and disseminate knowledge regarding brain-behavior relationships as it applies to sports, and to promote the welfare of athletes at all levels.

“The way we can really help our youth athletes is by understanding how we can maximally prevent concussions in sports, and how we can manage those earliest concussions more effectively to minimize the negative long term consequences,” says Dr. Gioia.