Sports-related traumatic brain injury
Rules exist within each sport to help prevent cerebral contusions and traumatic brain injuries. However, individual athletes are the best prevention against their own injuries. In a game, athletes notice when they have the symptoms of a cerebral contusion and should take themselves out of the game. It may be hard for medical personnel or coaches to notice when a player has a traumatic brain injury, so it is in the player’s best interest to be removed from play. In hockey, traumatic brain injuries constitute 10%-15% of all head injuries. With the high percent of injuries being traumatic, extensive design improvements have been made to helmets. These improvements reduce the risk of cerebral contusions by providing more padding around the skull and a chin strap that keeps the helmet snug. In baseball, major improvements to helmets have been made to protect batters from the impact a baseball can have when hitting their head. Helmets, before this major improvement, were designed to withstand a velocity of 70 mph from a pitch or foul ball. Since the company Rawlings’ new design, helmets can withstand a velocity of 100 mph and have further padding around the softer parts on the side of the skull.
Jennie Ponsford
Professor Jennie Ponsford has spent the last 30 years working the field of traumatic brain injury. She currently co-ordinates one of the world’s largest longitudinal outcome studies, which is tracking more than 2000 patients over 30 years following a traumatic brain injury. The Longitudinal Head Injury Outcome Project, has been running since 1995. The goal of the study is to document the long term problems of people with TBI, identify factors that influence outcome, particularly the influence of age, genetic, cultural and behavioural factors. This study represents one of the largest TBI databases with long term follow up data from both patients and families. Jennie has published widely in the field of TBI, writing over 17 book chapters addressing the consequences and management of TBI related disorders. In 2012 she was lead author on the book 'Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation for everyday adaptive living' She has published over 100 scholarly articles on the topic.