National Athletic Trainers' Association Position Statement: Management of Sport Concussion

This NATA position statement, published in the Journal of Athletic Training in 2014, updates the association's 2004 statement on sport concussion. It gives athletic trainers, physicians and other health professionals graded recommendations on managing sport-related concussion, rated with the Strength of Recommendation Taxonomy.

The recommendations fall under education and prevention, documentation and legal aspects, evaluation and return to play, and other considerations such as equipment, pediatric patients, home care and multiple concussions. They call for baseline testing in high-risk athletes, immediate removal and evaluation of any athlete suspected of concussion, no return on the day of injury, and a physical-exertion progression only after symptoms and test results have returned to normal.

The statement advises against using concussion grading scales to manage the injury, notes that helmets protect against catastrophic head injury but do not substantially reduce concussion risk, and calls for a more conservative approach in children, adolescents and athletes with a history of concussion. It described rest as the best practice for recovery at the time.

This statement remains in force alongside NATA's 2024 bridge statement. The bridge revises a number of these recommendations, for example allowing light aerobic exercise to start before symptoms and test scores have fully returned to normal, and adds new ones; for every recommendation the bridge did not change, it sends clinicians back to this 2014 statement, so the two are meant to be read together.