Meet Our Team

Sports Concussion South Africa ® is a trademark registered by Dr Jon Patricios.

South African Sports Concussion Centres were first established by Dr. Jon Patricios in 2003 with the purpose of improving the medical management of concussion in the South African sports environment using a combination of repeated clinical assessments and scientifically validated computer brain function testing.

This individualised concussion management system was adapted from the International Conferences on Concussion and subsequent Consensus Statements.

We incorporated many of the protocols we had been using in our experience with professional athletes in particular, high level rugby players.

Sports Concussion Centres introduced the concept of multidisciplinary assessment and management of concussed individuals via interaction between:

• Sports Physicians – co-ordinating field side and clinical assessments
• Neurosurgeons / Neurologists – assessment of complicated and hospital cases
• Neuropsychologists – overseeing neuropsychological testing and follow-up of post concussion syndrome complications
• Radiologists – CT and MRI scan interpretation
• Exercise therapists – assist with return-to-sport programmes

The South African Sports Concussion® Programme is comprehensive, integrating clinical assessment of the injured player and computer software for neuropsychological (brain function) testing.

The protocols used have been devised by clinicians with many years’ sports medicine experience and the technology incorporated is utilised by professional and amateur sports teams in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Europe and the USA.

This concussion programme is a South African Rugby Union (SARU) endorsed initiative that has been initiated by South African sports physicians with several years experience in provincial and international rugby.

The principles involved have been successfully applied to concussion programmes at these levels in rugby for the past decade and in sports concussion centres in Cape Town and Johannesburg, to a broad spectrum of sportspersons suffering concussion.