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.
Time-based prospective memory
Crawford et al. (2006) constructed a virtual shopping precinct from photographs, sounds and video segments linked together. Their aim was to assess deficits in participants prospective remembering following chronic traumatic brain injuries, under conditions of high and low distractions. Participants are matched with a control group and their goal is complete a list of 10 errands with the help of a checklist. There are 3 targets that appear at certain times throughout their task that make up the prospective component. The group with traumatic brain injuries performed poorly compared to the control group, suggesting how extremely important certain brain areas are in time-based prospective memory.