He may have known where he was, but Myles Burnsides wasn't about to see the field in the second half of a recent Northwest Missouri State football game.

The headache-producing impact was bad enough, but the senior safety could blame ImPACT for shutting him down for a couple of days.

New research has drastically changed the way athletic trainers manage players who have sustained concussions, as they try to prevent long-term effects from those head injuries.

And a computer program called ImPACT has become a big part of that management process locally.

"It's a simple program," Burnsides said of the physician-developed computer program that measures visual memory, reaction time, visual motor speed and other brain functions. "We do it at the beginning of the season just to test where everyone's at. If you have (a concussion), you do it again and compare it to what you had before the season."

Gone are the days when a player just needed to know where he was in order to get back in the game. And that's not really so bad, Northwest coach Mel Tjeerdsma said.

"You think back, it used to be if you get a concussion in the first half, if you can remember where you were at by halftime they put you back out on the field. It was just different. They didn't realize all the implications and factors stay with you."

The NFL Players Association has made a big push for research in the area after realizing many former players had problems later in life. Now, it takes a normal ImPACT score as well as a lack of symptoms to get back on the field, according to Northwest trainer Kelly Quinlin.

Quinlin said concussions used to be graded, usually on a scale of 1 to 3, with a Grade 3 concussion being the worst. But now they are evaluated individually according to the number and persistence of the symptoms.

"Somebody may have the exact same hit, have only a headache, but that headache lasts for two weeks, which is significant," Quinlin said. "The next person may get knocked out and two days later he's symptom-free. Everyone's different."

Burnsides was lucky. His second concussion - he sustained his first while competing in basketball in high school - produced only a headache for the rest of the day. By the next morning, he had no symptoms, but he still had to pass the ImPACT test to get back on the field.

Others aren't so lucky. Missouri Western running back Thomas Hodges missed the Missouri Southern game on Oct. 24 after sustaining a concussion against Central Missouri. Wide receiver Andrew Mead was knocked unconscious during a preseason practice and hasn't suited up all season.

Western athletic trainer Kate Esely, who went to Pittsburgh to speak to the developer of the ImPACT program, said trainers use ImPACT as an additional tool in the evaluation of the athletes. If a player sustains a severe hit and walks off the field under his own power, she meets him at the sidelines for an immediate, "old-fashioned" evaluation.

"We ask them where they're at, what day it is, what they had for breakfast, what team do you play for, and things like that," Esely said.

If the player has any symptoms, he's usually done for the day. Then follow-up observation begins.

"The best way to recover from a concussion is to shut the brain down," Esely said, explaining that sleep is encouraged to guard against too much brain stimulation. "With light sensitivity, even watching TV is sometimes a struggle."

The second day, Esely said, trainers do a physical symptoms concussion evaluation, which is part of the ImPACT program.

"We repeat it until their symptoms drop way down," she said.

By Monday, Esely or another member of the training staff will put the player back on the computer to test the brain function and compare to the results to the baseline score from August.

Both Esely and Quinlin said an abnormal ImPACT score is a ticket to the bench, no matter how badly their coach wants them to play.

"That's something you can't err on," Tjeerdsma said. "We all want them to play, because you need them from the team standpoint, but you've got to think about their safety."