Canadian research team trying to replicate forces applied to the head

[Jason Harris 31]

Kerry Goulet linked this video on Facebook. It's an outstanding vignette on a Canadian research team that is trying to replicate the forces applied to the head during collisions, punches and falls to the ice.

http://www.sportsnet...hl_concussions/

[johnwilliam22 0]

hmmm interesting - but not sure if you can calculate this accurately because every punch, slam, take down are all varied powers and speeds. I think its safe to say the helmet and padding helps - might be more sensible to apply this to professional boxing?

[Jason Harris 31]

Actually, most neurotraumaists (not sure if that's a word!) believe that helmets and mouth guards have a negligible affect on preventing concussions. I'm not sure I intuitively agree with them, because there have to be some collisions in which padding could absorb the force of impact before it reaches the skull, but maybe the researchers are essentially implying that once a blow gets above X force, nothing will stop the brain from moving inside the cavity. That said, the professor also claimed that they measured higher impact when players removed their helmets during a fight, so it would be interesting to see the numerical difference that helmet padding can make.

But it appeared from the video that the researchers were trying to calculate the affect at different speeds and powers, because they said that they had to adjust the machine to replicate the force of differently sized men.

JR, I noticed that there were a couple of different threads that touched on concussions, so I was trying to create a master thread that would let people add different news into. Any way we can change the title back to reflect a catchall thread?

[JR Boucicaut 3795]

We'll do the master thread, and then it will fall in chronologically.