Original post on Forbes.com.
The chilling prospect of brain damage occurring because of concussions in collision sports needs to be lessened by concrete action. On Monday, I laid out four ways to make football and other collision sports safer. Here are seven further action points for change.
1. Soccer athletes also need protection. It has become increasingly clear that soccer is a collision sport. A spate of concussions for girls in AYSO and club soccer has been attributed to the smaller size of their necks and the muscles supporting their heads. It may be time to think about mandatory helmets. Heading the ball at an early age produces the same sub-concussive repetitive event that can aggregate into brain damage. The brain has no defense against the force of heading. We should consider limiting this practice.
2. Rules in football limiting contact with the head and neck need better enforcement, and standardization at all levels of the game. Rules prohibiting hits against "defenseless" wide receivers or quarterbacks are railed against by football purists who claim that the game is being "sissified." But these rules changes have not diminished fan attendance or viewership, and the critics are far away when the athlete is retired and suffering.
3. Training that focuses on strengthening the muscles in the neck and shoulders that support the head can reduce the chance of concussions, as well as their severity.
4. The same technological and engineering innovation that has revolutionized life today, fueled by a profit motive, needs to be focused on breakthroughs in the design of helmets. Tate Technology has developed a helmet that utilizes coil and compression to displace the energy force of a blow by as much as 50%. A new Vicious helmet that also uses an energy displacement design has been adopted by 26 NFL teams. These same designs can be used in hockey, lacrosse and field hockey.
5. There need to be better devices and a better methodology for detecting concussions as they occur. Athletes are in a state of denial concerning their health. They live in a subculture that above their long-term health values toughness and participating in every play. Asking them to self-report, and expecting concussed individuals essentially to diagnose themselves, is futile. There are a variety of new devices and tests that can identify both concussions and sub-concussive states in athletes so that it is clearer to doctors and trainers that the athlete needs to be pulled from the field and treated. We are long past the era of "How many fingers am I holding up?"
6. Unnecessary contact in training camp and practices, where many concussions occur in football, should be eliminated. A new robot has been developed that can be used in practices for tackling, taking the place of a player. While he was coaching, June Jones banned hitting except in games, and his teams were successful. The Ivy League will experiment with a rule that eliminates hitting outside games.
7. Concussion protocols should be enforced and expanded to other sports. The NFL has adopted a protocol for games that includes trained spotters in the press box and on the sidelines who monitor hits that may have resulted in concussions. Those suspected to have one are pulled off the field and evaluated, and they need to pass tests before they are allowed back in the game or are allowed to practice or play again. These protocols need to be made mandatory in college and high school football and other collision sports.
In the next article in this series, we will focus on what to do after a concussion occurs to mitigate damage and on long-term solutions to heal the brain.