Tag Archives: helmet
International Boxing Association Bans Headgear in Bid to Reduce Concussions
The International Boxing Association, which oversees amateur boxing, will ban elite male boxers who compete 
internationally from wearing headgear, starting on June 1
Many have suggested that if the National Football League banned helmets that the incidence of concussions would decline. This may be the first time that a sports group has tried this theory.
“All available data indicated that the removal of headguard in Elite Men would result in a decreased number of concussions,” the AIBA said in a statement.
One of the given reasons was that headgear blocks peripheral vision, preventing boxers from seeing punches coming from the side.
Charles Butler, chairman of the Association’s medical commission, told the Wall Street Journal that “although cuts will still be a risk, these will heal, as will bones. But if you can’t recognize your grandchildren, it’s a disaster.”
Womble Carlyle Attorney Helps Concussion Product Company Negotiate Deal, Secure Spokesperson
Having represented professional athletes before, Womble Carlyle attorney George A. Scott Jr. has a special appreciation for the toll a sport can take on a player.
So not surprisingly, Scott has found a way to potentially provide some relief to current and future athletes when it comes to concussions.
Scott, according to his firm, has been assisting Brain Sentry, a company that produces a helmet-mounted monitoring system that helps identify players who have experienced significant impacts to the head.
Reportedly, the Arena Football League will use the Brain Sentry sensors on the helmets of all 480 players in the league. In addition, Brain Sentry is working with the AFL on the league’s concussion task force.
Scott has been counseling Brain Sentry on investment and business partnership deals, according to the firm. For example, Scott closed the company’s first round of investment and helped negotiate the agreement with the AFL.
Recently, Scott introduced Brain Sentry officials to Charles Mann – a former NFL player as well as a client of Scott’s – which led to a relationship between the two. Mann “agreed to become an investor in Brain Sentry and to join the company’s Board of Directors. He also will serve as a celebrity spokesperson for Brain Sentry,” according to the firm.
Lacrosse Due for Rule Changes that Protect Against Concussions
Is lacrosse actually trailing professional football when it comes to a proactive stance on making rule changes that protect participants from concussions?
That certainly appears to be the case.
Medstar Sports Medicine Research Center in Baltimore recently videotaped 518 boys’ lacrosse games at 25 public high schools in Fairfax County, Virginia during the 2008 and 2009 seasons. A total of 86 concussions were reportedly identified and treated by athletic trainers.
The findings – the majority of the concussions resulted from players using their head to initiate contact, many times on defenseless players – was alarming.
An article on the site Mom’s Team quoted the lead researcher, Andrew E. Lincoln, as saying that the findings “demonstrate that the struck player was unaware and unprepared for the impending impact in about half of the collisions resulting in concussions and captured on video. These ‘defenseless hits’ represent scenarios where the player’s full attention is focused on obtaining possession of the ball, and therefore, the player may be vulnerable to unanticipated contact from an opponent.”
But what may have been more alarming was the fact that “penalties were called in only 9 out of the 34 cases.”
In a concluding passage of the study, the authors wrote: “The absence of penalty calls on most of these plays suggests an area for exploration, such as the extent to which rules governing player to player contact are enforced and how effective these rules are for the prevention of head injury at various levels of the sport.”
Posted in General, High School, Other Sports
Tagged defenseless, helmet, lacrosse, study
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