The ‘unsexy’, low-tech fix that will reduce brain injuries in sport

For parents the world over, weekend mornings often look the same: standing by the side of a soccer pitch, a basketball court or an American football field.

In Australia’s southern states, it’s often an Aussie rules football oval.

But a few weeks ago, tragedy struck when footballer Nathan Fitzgerald died after copping three hits to his head during a game.

And there’s been story after story of footballers and other elite athletes being diagnosed with probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

In this week’s episode of The Conversation Weekly, we speak to neuroscientist and Adjunct Professor at Swinburne University of Technology Alan Pearce, about whether we need to be worried about the damage sport does to our brains.

He’s been researching sports-related head injuries for more than two decades and explains that while concussion has been recognised for many years as a traumatic brain injury, understanding of CTE has advanced significantly only in the past decade.

CTE is a neurodegenerative brain disease. And it’s not just in old people. We see this in young people as well.

We find that players, athletes, military, and unfortunately [cases of] domestic violence — where the person has never been concussed but has received hundreds and thousands of repeated impacts to the head — diagnosed with CTE.

He says much of the public discussion mistakenly focuses on concussion protocols while overlooking the broader issue of repetitive impacts.

CTE is a disease of repetitive sub-concussive impacts. You don’t have to show any signs or symptoms, it’s just those repetitive hits that is leading towards CTE. So in some respects, there has been a lot of misinformation around that.

People have to understand that brain tissue is like silken tofu inside your brain. It’s very delicate and it doesn’t take much to move the tissue.

Ultimately, he says, the solution is simple. Rather than experiment with technology or ban contact sports entirely, introducing modifications can make a big difference.

The solution is not necessarily glamorous, it’s not tech related, it’s not sexy. It basically is reducing the exposure. We need to modify our sports, particularly for kids and adolescents, but also, in training.

I think we’ve come to the point now where we can’t afford to keep saying, “oh isn’t it sad that Player X or Y or Z has passed away with CTE? Oh, it’s so terrible. What a terrible thing.” And then four days later go and watch the game and expect the the players to be essentially destroying each other on the field or expect their training sessions to be harder than ever because that’s what real athletes do.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Isabella Podwinski. Sound design by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from include 7News, 9News, 10 News Melbourne, 1News, ABC News, SEN SA and SBS News.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here.