Sports medics equipped on handling concussions

 

 

 

The course was conducted by Dr. Ian Pike and Dr. Shelina Babul from the University of British Colombia Injury Research and Prevention Unit, who volunteered to teach the Ugandans in conjunction with the ministry of education and sports and in collaboration with the Ministry of Health.

 

The course, the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa, attended by over 100 participants was initiated by Samuel Lubega a lecturer and student at the University of Cape Town who initially contacted the facilitators, to carry it out based on the research over the last five years.

 

The Ministry of Education and Sports will now embrace it as one of its curriculum according to sports commissioner Omara Apita who was the chief guest at the closing.

 

"We are working with the ministry of health in the promotion of physical activity for the citizenry of this country and I'm happy that now we will be able to manage injuries better.

 

"Our country needs multi-skilled people and as the sports sector we have a strategic plan we would like to add this to our strategic plan so that we can move together -this as as a component of capacity building for different personnel," Apita stated.

 

The ‘students' learned how to recognise and assess the severity of the concussions and recommend management, and rehabilitation of those that have been concussed.

 

Participants included managers, coaches, administrators, managers and medics from different clubs and different professionals like FUBA, the Rugby Union, Olympic Committee and FUFA among others.

 

"I discovered that concussions in Uganda hadn't been managed well because a study in 2013 found that if not well handled it can cause serious complications like mental instability and can lead to disability and poor performance," Lubega said.

 

Ian said they were trying to address sport and recreation injury and they were in Uganda because the government had identified importance around concussion identification and management.

 

"The idea is to keep people fit, health and injury-free. The training was entirely focused on concussion awareness because it is a complex injury that you cannot see and it presents differently in different people and so the idea is to train people to be able to see the symptoms and to ensure that when they recognise that an athlete is concussed they can be able to rest him for at least 48 hours," Ian stated.