But Dawn Comstock, an injury epidemiologist at the University of Colorado's School of Public Health, wanted to know if headers are indeed the chief cause of concussions.
She became curious after learning of the Safer Soccer Campaign, a collaboration between the Sports Legacy Institute and several former U.S. Women's soccer stars that was formed to try to ban heading in youth players under age 14. Though she respected their motives, Comstock wanted to be sure the changes the group proposed would really make a difference. "I like to see kids kept safe," she says, "but I like to see that the evidence is data-driven."
To find out the cause and frequency of concussions in youth soccer, Comstock and her colleagues looked at nine years of data on high school soccer players. They found that although heading is the phase of play most frequently associated with concussions, accounting for 30 percent of concussions in boys and 25 percent in girls, many concussions weren't coming from the impact of the player's head with the ball. Instead, most concussions, including those that happened while heading the ball, resulted from athletes colliding.
The study, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, showed that athlete-athlete contact was responsible for 69 percent of concussions in boys and 51 percent of concussions in girls.
"Our takeaway from that," Comstock says, "is yes, if you ban heading in soccer, you would prevent some concussions." But, she says, enforcing the rules of the game might make a bigger difference. "They're willing to completely eliminate a phase of play," she says, "But nobody is willing to address the elephant in the room, which is rough play."
A lot of the athlete-athlete contact is unnecessary and illegal, Comstock says, and can be controlled by playing by the rules. "Coach fair play, coach technique," she says, "And ensure officials enforce the rules of the game."...
One concern O'Kane has with Comstock's study is that it relies on the players to report their own injuries to an athletic trainer, and not all players do. Comstock acknowledges that this is a limitation, but says concussions are tricky to diagnose conclusively. It's not like a broken bone, where a doctor can order an X-ray; most concussions are diagnosed based on self-reported symptoms. "This [study], we feel, is a reliable snapshot of what's actually happening to athletes in a high school setting across the U.S.," she says.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/14/422563704/would-banning-headers-in-soccer-solve-the-concussion-problem
While a lower percentage of girls experience concussions from heading compared to boys (25.3% versus 30.2%), the concussion rate from heading is higher for girls (relative risk 15.1, 95% CI 9.7-24.5) than boys (RR 11.0, CI 7.2-12.5), reported R. Dawn Comstock, MD, of the University of Colorado Denver in Aurora, and colleagues.
ReplyDeleteAnd the number is only growing. In the last nine years (2005-2006 to 2013-2014), concussion rates due to heading have increased for girls (P=0.03), but not boys (P=0.10), the authors wrote in JAMA Pediatrics.
While overall, contact with another player still comprises the vast majority of concussions in both sexes (68.8% for boys and 51.3% for girls), girls were more likely to report concussion symptoms from "contact with a playing apparatus" (the ball) as opposed to contact with another player...
"Could this difference be due to different styles of play? For example, do girls head the ball more than boys? Is their heading technique poorer than boys? Does the ball spend more time in the air (and less on the ground) when girls play, compared to boys? Understanding difference in playing style might help us understand how to prevent concussions without eliminating heading from the game of soccer," he said...
Overall, concussion rates have increased, regardless of sex. Both boys and girls reported an overall increase in concussion rates during the past nine years (P=0.002 and P=0.004, respectively), including similar increases in concussions sustained both during competition and practice. Examining overall concussion rates in nine high school sports, girls soccer ranked second, while boys soccer ranked fifth...
Bazarian also pointed out the study did not distinguish between which of the concussions occurred as the result of fair, legal play and which resulted from illegal plays.
"If we knew that many of these heading-related concussions occurred during illegal plays, we might conclude that enforcing the existing rules -- rather than eliminating heading -- would be good first step toward reducing concussions," he said.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/HeadTrauma/52570?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2015-07-14&eun=g906366d0r
In 2012, the soccer star Brandi Chastain argued that young players — and especially girls — needed to learn to make space for themselves on the field to avoid colliding with each other when heading. This is a particularly useful piece of coaching advice and is more appropriate than simply banning heading for players under the age of 14, given the research thus far...
ReplyDeleteTeaching players to know where their body is in relation to others on the field and severely penalizing players who make contact with others while attempting to head the ball would eliminate a significant number of heading injuries...
Today, my concern is that a concussion uproar coming from girl’s soccer stars might suggest that this is only a problem for girls, which might deter some of them from participating.
Of course, concussions are an issue for all soccer players, not just the female ones. And it is important to have a discussion about how to make the sport safer for all kids. We can do that in part with better coaching and conditioning, as well as more careful officiating.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/06/26/how-risky-is-heading-in-soccer/on-field-collisions-are-more-dangerous-than-heading-in-youth-soccer
And you think soccer players have it difficult? See:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kare11.com/videos/news/world/2015/08/17/31718547/