Five hundred U.P. student athletes will take the test this Spring.
NEGAUNEE -- This past fall, Bell Sports Medicine treated 30 student athlete concussions.
Now, they're looking to improve the way they treat them.
High school athletes can take some pretty hard hits to the head in their sport, and when they do, experts say they all take a different amount of time to recover .
"The adolescent brain is so fragile that it needs time to heal. For these kids to be tested, it gives us as healthcare professionals a better gauge for when they should be going back to their sport," says Matthew Jaksetic of Bell Sports Medicine.
Within the next few weeks, 500 Westwood, Negaunee, and Ishpeming student athletes will take an Impact Test.
It's a 45 minute, online exam that takes students through six different modules, each testing different areas of cognitive ability.
The impact test is a baseline test, which means that if any of the athletes gets a concussion, he or she will take the test again. When they go back to their sport depends on how well they do their second time taking the test.
One of the modules is word memory, where students are shown a series of words, and then later asked if they have seen a given word before.
The test also measures their reflexes and response time.
"It was interesting, I didn't think it was too difficult though," says Jacob Kari, a Negaunee football player.
"I'm not very good at remembering things, so it was kind of hard at some parts," says Morgan Kantio, a Negauneee cheerleader.
Bell Sports Medicine wanted to test the students before summer break, and before fall sports start up again.
The testing service was paid for by the Bell Foundation.
For more on the Impact Test, click here.
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