Heads Up doesn't prevent Concussions & Bettman questions Concussion/CTE link
Key points...take aways
- Highly touted effectiveness of the Heads Up program in youth football are not born out in the release of initial study.
- More restricting Pop Warner techniques are potentially better with respect to concussion prevention.
- Youth football is struggling to find answers
Front page article - NYT - most emailed article -
In another story - NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is not ready to acknowledge a correlation between game-action head trauma and the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Kudos to Bettman for distinguishing CTE from Concussion issues. Though the NFL is distancing themselves from him he's got that right - IMO. Unfortunately I don't think Bettman get's the underlying causes of CTE or the severe consequences for those who develop it.
Cruising the inter tubes tonight... thought I would share...
but what doesn't prevent concussions?
Gary Bettman is a fuck. News at 11.
Go live in a bubble. You're still going to die.
Kudos to Bettman for distinguishing CTE from Concussion issuesHuh?
the incidence of concussion and injury, per the article.
soccer has a higher (the highest?) incidence of concussion, so go figure.
bottom line: be smart, teach them to hit smart and not with the head (which we've always done), and you minimize the risk. football is still very big where we are, but curious to see if the drop in participation across the country continues, and how much is due to the injury issue as opposed to other demographic issues.
that I don't want my son playing, at least until he's older and can make a more informed decision on his own.
However, I signed him up for an "intro to sports" class with other 3-5 year olds a few weeks ago. Aside from the fact that he needs to learn how to listen to the coach (his was the only name heard consistently from the sidelines), guess which of the sports they tried he liked the best?
Didn't care about soccer, or volleyball, had no interest in the baseball glove, but his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when they brought out the football.
as to informed decisions, i would disagree with you there. kids might know what they like, but all children lack wisdom and i suggest only slowly should decision making authority be given to them, and only when they show consistent, wise decisions about lesser matters.
as to football, my 4 oldest boys play and the sum total of all of those years is exactly one missed game from injury, a game that particular son could've played in but i/we held him out.
i played football until i was 41 and i'm fine [insert joke here re: oh yeah? ]. this will be my 9th year of coaching football. assuming you have decent coaches where you live, your son will be fine. when he gets high school age you might have to go year-by-year, but have no fear of at least starting him in pop warner.
lastly, i also wrestled and played baseball all through high school, and went to our favorite school to play hockey. i have grown very fond of hoops, and if any of my kids had liked something like soccer, hopefully i would've adapted (didn't/not happening, don't have to worry about it). when it's all said and done, though i enjoy all the sports and think they are all valuable, football is my choice for best life lessons,
We've found the decline around here is that moms own the wallets. The dads are all for it, but say that their wives say no.
something else maybe. but yeah, i think it's largely the moms.
Heads Up wasn't supposed to "eliminate" concussions. It is meant to help reduce them by removing the crown of the helmet as a tackling device and also reduce neck/spine injuries. I had a few crown to crown shots when I played HS football, some where you see an instant "flash". That crown of the helmet can be a vicious thing.
I saw an 8 year old get concussed on defense at my son's game last year. The RB was a hard hitting kid that dropped his head when contact came. He lowered his head and hit the defender square in the chin with the crown of his helmet. This poor little kid on defense was woozy as could be and eyes just glazed over. The RB did get a 15 yd penalty.
I coached 8 years at different levels of youth football - only saw one concussion at the middle school age. Yeah - the speed and size has a lot to do with it.
My kid played from 8-12 and I saw at least one concusssion per year in his league.
Here is something you need to remember: You do not to have loss of consciousness to have a concussive event. Any stinger or kid getting his bell rung making or getting tackled qualifies as a possblie concussive event.
Also your threshold for brain injury decreases with each successive event.
So go back in your memory banks an reassess if you witnessed any of these events.
I treat people with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury from many different sources in my practice.
The science is increasing everyday in the area.
Carry on and GoBlue
The guys with CTE were for the most part long-career pros. And they didn't know about concussions (just a headache) much less how to prevent/treat them.
I don't think jr. that plays High School and maybe gets concussed once or twice and never plays again after HS - as most do not make college level - will ever get CTE.
My daughter got a concussion from soccer - only played two years total. My son has been playing football 8 years and never has had one.
Football takes most the blame and press because:
1) Pro football players were the first to come forward with CTE studies/lawsuits.
2) Football is the #1 sport in $$$ and media coverage.
Funny how no one ever talks about stopping gymnastics when you see nearly every girl in the Olympics has had multiple fractures, concussions including spine injures before age 12. Not on the radar but every 4 years - and no one to sue.
And the current research suggests that concussions are only a partial factor in the development of CTE. The research suggests that subconcussive contact (the type of collisions that linemen have when they knock helmets together on virtually every play or that happens to linebackers when they use their helmet in a tackle) is a larger factor.
(Given this research, it will be interesting to see what happens as research is expanded to soccer players, who have the same kinds of impacts when heading the ball, part of the reason that US soccer has now banned headers up to U-12 or U-14).
Anyway, here's the most important summary of relatively recent research.
http://www.bu.edu/cte/files/2012/05/Baugh_Chronic-Traumatic-Encephalopa…
Also, the overall frequency of concussions in gymnastics is piddling compared to football.
I played organized football for 7 years and had 1 concussion, a good buddy of mine that played on the same teams with me for those 7 years probably had 6 or 7. We both played the same position and had pretty equal playing time. I don't really think there are any answers to how to stop concussions in football at this point.
wiring of kids and relative size and maturity. There may be genetic susceptiblity. Your experiece is validated in every survey and study. Many people play early and often ... hit and get hit hard... and are fine. Genetics possibly plays a role.
Heads up tackling prevents more catastrophic injuries to the neck.
Leather helmets?
Bettman is an idiot who still fails to recognize moving a team to Arizona as a mistake even after years of bleeding the leagues revenues.
Well, it has been, more or less, 'proven' that concussions don't equal CTE. Its continual blows to the head, whether they result in a concussion or not, that researchers believe eventually leads to CTE. So, from that view alone, Bettman is technically correct. However, he missed the larger view - in a way that certainly HAS to be intentional. Enforcers like Probert (man, I miss him in uniform) would be more likley to get CTE based on repeated blows to the head during the thousands of fights they're in throughout thier hockey careers.
But where the NFL (and NHL) have failed is in addressing this whole thing head on. Instead of diminishing its reflection by funding research and leading studies on preventitive measures, they've denied, not only that it exists, but also that their games have anything to do with it. As long as they keep denying and obfuscating - like Bettman clearly has - they are going to continue losing the PR battle, and losing player enrollment on the junior end...
I've said it before, IMO they need to hit this hard by admitting the links and funding the research. The Heads Up Program is a good start, but stop fudging the data and add to the program by combining the things that Pop Warner is doing. Make improvements by looking at the data objectively - not by saying, 'hey, give us something that looks good for us'.
Also, why are there no anti-concussion helmets in use yet? The professional leagues have the money to seed junior leagues, and high schools, with state fo the art equipment like anti-concussion helmets. There are many varieties of them now, which ones work best? Who cares - put them in junior and HS leagues and let the data tell the story!
There is no reason, none at all, that CTE had to become this large a story. With billions of $$$ in TV money, the billionaires that own teams can afford to fund the sport properly, and lead the way on making their sports safer. That would do more for junior team enrollments than any denial or obfuscation ever will...
The headline on conussions makes sense, given the conclusion in the research paper reads as follows:
When restricted to concussions only, the sole difference was found between the practice concussion rates among 11- to 15-yearolds in the [Heads Up Football - Pop Warner Affiliated (HUF+PW)] (0.14/1000 AEs) and [Non-Heads Up Football (NHUF)] groups (0.79/1000 AEs) (IRR, 0.18; 95% CI, 0.04-0.85).
So, there was some reduction, but given the limitations in the data set it probably needs to be studied more.
But that initial study does suggest that did significantly reduce injuries in pratice, and when being pop-warner affiliated, in games:
Compared with the NHUF group (7.32/1000 AEs), the practice injury rates were lower for the HUF+PW group (0.97/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.13; 95% CI, 0.08- 0.21) and the HUF-only group (2.73/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.26-0.53). Compared with the NHUF group (13.42/1000 AEs), the game injury rate was lower for the HUF+PW group (3.42/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.25; 95% CI, 0.15-0.44) but not for the HUF-only group (13.76/1000 AEs; IRR, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.73-1.43). Also, the HUFþPW game injury rate was lower than that of HUF-only (IRR, 0.20; 95% CI, 0.12-0.36).
So making that into English (removing the confidence intervals, etc), per 1,000 athlete exposures ("AEs"), the practice injury rates were as follows:
HUF+PW: 0.97
HUF: 2.73
NHUF: 7.32
(HUF is Heads Up Football-Only - no PW affiliation)
While the game injury rates were as follows:
HUF+PW: 3.42
HUF: 13.76
NHUF: 13.42
Obviously a lot more research needs to be done - they go on to say that they need to understand the reason for the difference in Pop-Warner affiliation since the numbers are significant. They also state that they expected injury rates to be the same in game (since Pop Warner has practice contact restrictions which would help reduce exposure to injuries), but the numbers indicate that there was a significant reduction in injures for the HUF+PW population.
That's good - and a real positive. People commenting below on the fact that repeated non-concussion blows are believed to be the cause of CTE (not just concussions) are spot on in that this won't resolve that (and it shouldn't be advertised as the solution), but it is a positive on the injury front.
Much much much more resources need to be poured into understanding the long-term effects of helmets, repeated (non-concussory and concussory) blows to the head and their impacts. NFL should heavily fund that research to help find solutions in my opinion, but I think they are afraid of what the data will show.
i have been coaching youth football going on my 5th year. we have had one kid with a concussion and that happened at home while playing with his brother (he fell back and hit his head on the floor). you can't prevent every concussion but teaching them the head's up way to tackle ect.. will decrease the chances
Kind've a doomsday-ish thought, but I hope the NFL being so secretive about it doesn't completely tear down the sport of football.... Like Harbaugh said, "Football is the last beacon of hope for toughness in males in America." I LOVE football because it teaches life lessons, discipline, teamwork, and more, but if the highest level can't admit to its mistakes and try everything in its power to make it safer then the game may fade over time.
This is spot on. This is a problem and there are threeways to deal with it: (1) confront it and find solutions; (2) attempt to downplay the severity of the situation while not doing much; or (3) deny, hide, ignore, obscure.
For years the NFL took approach #3. They've reluctantly come around to approach #2.
But I just want to shake them and go "what are you thinking?". How much better would it be long term of the NFL said this: we recognize there are safety issues, we recognize there needs to be more research into CTE, we recognize we need better training. And then pumped millions into medical research, equipment research, funding youth programs, and embraced being on the forefront of this.
NFL Revenue was ~$7.2b in 2014, which split among 32 teams is $226m a team. And it continues to go up. Take $200 million a year from that and put into all that research EACH year and the profit per team is $219m assuming no increase. It's a proverbial drop in the bucket.
But alas, I'm sure there's concern about damaging the sport or the brand.
Bettman is reminiscent of a poltiican in many ways. He is very unlikeable....and oozes an air of distrust.
i coach HS football, Heads up is a good thing. its still a baby in the process tho. Theres much helmet to body cantact than there was 10 years ago.
The probloem IMO is in youth leagues, parents are still teaching the old ways. Even though many coaches
What i don't understand is that why not go with change of the helmet? Are those helmet manufacturer hold the power to dictate this sport and concussion issue?
The hard helmet is a no no. a collision between hard helmet can sometimes create 80g or higher acceleration (this is the peak level). By changing to leather helmet (probably some improved modem version) alone would probably reduce the impact by a few times, i.e. 30-50 . The average impact at a college football practice was something like 15-30g, i can't remember on the top of my head , but it was on a research paper from VT i read). That can also be further reduced too, i guess.
I would be interested to see a reserach group to provide a practice data with leather helmet (which probably no kid wants to wear unfortunately) and compare to the other helemts :P
Just make them all wear Don Beebe helmets. It's my understand that far safer helmets exist but they look ridiculous and people won't wear them.
The problem with leather helmets was that it didn't protect against other severe injuries like skull fractures and hematomas. It was created in response to that, and you need to protect against those too.
Wierdly enough in looking for an article on it I stumbled upon the fact that one of my old friends from high school is apparently a Doctor at the CTE Center and has written a bunch of research papers on football, CTE, and brain injuries...
- Youth football is struggling to find answers
It's called flag football, you're welcome.