Kasee Hildenbrand

Current Concussion Guidelines and Update

Kasee Hildenbrand, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Director, Athletic Training Program

Washington State University, Pullman, WA

Reflections

“I thought this presentation was great. The presenter was very organized, thorough, and informative. I liked how she brought some humor to the presentation to make it more enjoyable. It was very informative and I feel like I learned a lot of valuable information. She was very prepared and presented as if we were her students from WSU which I liked a lot.”

Kelsey Darnell

“I liked the presentation because Dr. Hildenbrand was very knowledgeable about concussions. She made it fun to learn about concussions because of her witty ways and how she threw in her own experiences to make it not as dull. The PowerPoint was very helpful to put the number of concussions in different athletic levels.”

Josh Leinweber

About Kasee:

Dr. Hildenbrand directs the Athletic Training Program and teaches Emergency Response, Upper Extremity Evaluation course and Organization and Administration of Athletic Training. As director of the ATP, she supervises the academic program while coordinating student internships with the WSU Intercollegiate Athletics Department and various off-campus clinical rotations.

Her area of research is primarily focused on concussions, specifically:(a) to gain a better understanding of how head injuries (traumatic brain injury) affect the patient and develop a research based tool for the medical community to utilize for evaluating patients post traumatic injury, (b) evaluate the role neck strength plays in the incidence of concussion, (c) the biomechanical impacts that occur in youth sports, and (d) the effectiveness of current education in concussion awareness.

Past research interests include: (a) work within the field of aquatics research to better the understanding of common issues that affect the general public; (b) development of critical thinking and education of students with the following goals: (a) to develop a model for engaging students in the classroom and to challenge them to reach beyond the subject matter and grasp the fundamental message of the lesson; (b) to help dispel the stereotype perpetuated by the media of low graduation rates for student athletes by focusing on comparisons between typical students and their athletic counterparts.

Dr. Hildenbrand has a Ph.D. in Education and a Master's Degree in Kinesiology from Kansas State University. She has a bachelor's degree in Sport Medicine from Whitworth College.

-Bio and photo courtesty of the College of Education (WSU)

Three Keys to Understanding Concussion Guidelines

Stay up-to-date, as concussion information is always evolving.
When in doubt, sit them out is a great rule of thumb.
You have to look at the whole picture, there are many devices, tools and checklists, but each only give you part of the puzzle, don’t get locked into one specific things, but step back and look at the whole….and trust your gut.

"There is a lot of information out there, so make sure you are using reputable sources that have many sources of evidence cited. It is easy to get overwhelmed with the information, but finding a few good sources that stay up to date can really help."

- Kasee Hildenbrand