(WHAS11)-The old N-F-L standard, put in place in 2007, said that players should not be allowed to return to the same game if they lose consciousness.
But now things are changing to better protect players.
The new guidelines, put in place this week by N-F-L commissioner Roger Goodell, say that players who suffer a concussion cannot return on the same day if he shows certain symptoms. Also teams were told this month they have to have an outside neurologist who can be consulted on concussions.
Kerri Remmel, a neurologist at UofL, she says this is a big step in the right direction.
“The awareness is here, we recognize that a concussion can change the life on an individual. Repeated concussions and cause people to have long term memory loss learning problems. So the recognition of the significance of this on the athlete is very important and thats where we are going with this.” Says Kerri Remmel
In recent weeks, this has become a hot topic in the N-F-L with big name players missing games due to concussions such as Kurt Warner and Ben Roethlisberger. But this issue does not just affect professional football players. Bullitt East High School football player Jesse Bratcher suffered a head injury that went untreated. A few days later he took another hit that put him into a coma.
“Tell your teen to speak up even it means they can't play the next 3-4 games because he can't play for two years he can't he won't play sports at Bullitt East anymore. And if he would have spoken up sooner or louder he might have missed the first few games but he would have been ok.” Says Kerri Remmel
Although Bratcher will not be able to play football again, he is back at school and doing fine. The new N-F-L guidelines go into effect this week, we will have to wait and see what impact they make on the league and perhaps other levels of football.
