Course Instructors:

Tamara McLeod, PhD, ATC, FNATA

Although many athletic trainers use clinical practice guidelines, position statements, and consensus statements to identify best practices for the management of various illnesses and injuries, fewer understand the differences between these types of documents and the development process for these documents. This course aims to differentiate between clinical practice guidelines, position statements, and consensus statements and describe the process of how these documents are develop. Using the published documents regarding sport-related concussion, examples between the similarities and differences in recommendations made among these documents will be illustrated. Specifically, focus will be on similarities and differences in diagnosis, prevention, assessment, management, and the use of neurocognitive testing. A discussion of the historical changes in recommendations from Vienna and the 2004 NATA statement through the 2014 NATA statement and the recently released Berlin consensus statement will also be included.

This course aims to cover the following objectives, which will be presented in four individual online modules:  

1. Describe the development process for clinical practice guidelines
2. Differentiate between types of clinical practice guidelines
3. Discuss the process used to develop the Berlin concussion consensus statement
4. Identify best practices according to the Berlin concussion consensus statement
5. Compare recommendations from various statements and guidelines for use in clinical practice

According to the education levels described by the PDC, this continuing education course is considered to be Advanced Level, and is appropriate for all athletic trainers.