How Western University aims to reduce sports-related concussions

bistcawebsite
Aug 14, 2014
2 min read

Despite the celebrity-association with sports-related concussions (cue Sidney Crosby, Eric Lindros) there continues to be a lot of misunderstanding about the injury.

April 23, 2011: Washington Capitals defenseman Mike Green (#52) lays on the ice after being hit in the head with the puck during Game Five of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals NHL playoff series at Verizon Center against the New York Rangers.

In fact, of the 100,000 concussions which occur in Canada each year, more than half happen while people are playing sports. In the U.S., concussion rates among high school students doubled from 2005 to 2012.

Now Western University, which has long been a leader in concussion research and awareness through its See the Line initiative, has joined forces with the Sports Legacy Institute in the U.S.. Their partnership aims to further enhance research and programs to reduce the “concussion crisis” in sports.

According to CHCH, new programs will include advanced concussion training and a ‘brain and brawn’ camp for athletes. An existing program out of Wilfred Laurier University, where athletes educate others in the community about concussion, will continue.

Former CFL player Tim Fleiszer, now the executive director of the Sports Legacy Institute Canada, told am980, “… This is a big step towards solving the concussion crisis in Canada.”

The timing couldn’t be better. New research shows that concussions happen across the board in sports, not just in the seemingly accident-prone hockey, football and boxing the injury is associated with. In particular, there are high rates of concussions in competitive cheerleading (imagine what happens when you’re being thrown 20-feet in the air by your teammates), women’s soccer and lacrosse – the fastest growing high school sport in the States.

According to Dr. Robert Harbaugh, director of the Penn State Institute of the Neurosciences and chair of the department of neurosurgery, research shows that concussions are the result of a rotation of the head on the neck. Because of this, injuries are more likely to occur when players run into each other as opposed to when they are hit on the head by a ball.

According to Dr. Harbaugh and reported in PennLive.com, concussions are more frequent in women’s soccer, especially amongst children and teenagers, because men and boys have more neck muscle than women and girls.

As Crosby told the Globe and Mail in 2013, “Concussions are still kind of a mysterious thing. We do know a lot more now, but there are still things that we can learn and hopefully ways and methods we can learn to either heal or to find out more about the actual extent of the injuries.”

Hopefully this new partnership will solve some of the concussion mystery, and crisis.