TY - JOUR T1 - National Football League Head, Neck and Spine Committee’s Concussion Diagnosis and Management Protocol: 2017-18 season JF - British Journal of Sports Medicine JO - Br J Sports Med SP - 894 LP - 902 DO - 10.1136/bjsports-2018-099203 VL - 52 IS - 14 AU - Richard G Ellenbogen AU - Hunt Batjer AU - Javier Cardenas AU - Mitchel Berger AU - Julian Bailes AU - Elizabeth Pieroth AU - Robert Heyer AU - Nicholas Theodore AU - Wellington Hsu AU - Elizabeth Nabel AU - Joe Maroon AU - Robert Cantu AU - Ronnie Barnes AU - James Collins AU - Margot Putukian AU - Russell Lonser AU - Gary Solomon AU - Allen Sills Y1 - 2018/07/01 UR - http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/52/14/894.abstract N2 - One of the National Football League’s (NFL) Head, Neck and Spine Committee’s principal goals is to create a ‘best practice’ protocol for concussion diagnosis and management for its players. The science related to concussion diagnosis and management continues to evolve, thus the protocol has evolved contemporaneously. The Fifth International Conference on Concussion in Sport was held in Berlin in 2016, and guidelines for sports concussion diagnosis and management were revised and refined. The NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee has synthesised the most recent empirical evidence for sports concussion diagnosis and management including the Berlin consensus statement and tailored it to the game played in the NFL. One of the goals of the Committee is to provide a standardised, reliable, efficient and evidence-based protocol for concussion diagnosis and management that can be applied in this professional sport during practice and game day. In this article, the end-of-season version of the 2017–18 NFL Concussion Diagnosis and Management Protocol is described along with its clinical rationale. Immediate actions for concussion programme enhancement and research are reviewed. It is the Committee’s expectation that the protocol will undergo refinement and revision over time as the science and clinical practice related to concussion in sports crystallise ER -