Grace doesn’t think about head knocks when she plays rugby: “If you see your teammates get concussed it can be scary, but when you’re playing, I feel like it doesn’t cross your mind, you are just more focused on the game.”
Rugby players Jas and Poppy are part of a study investigating head knocks. Photo: Claire Concannon / RNZ
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Grace plays with the women’s team at High School Old Boys’ Rugby Club in Ōtautahi Christchurch and she is part of research study to figure out the incidence and magnitude of head knocks in junior rugby.
Led by Professor Nick Draper at the University of Canterbury, the study aims to follow 40 junior male and female rugby players across every training and game in one full season to work out what their exposure is.
Nicole Spriggs, a PhD candidate at Lincoln University, is tracking the girls’ teams. She does this by using mouthguards that are moulded specifically for each player using dental scans, and which contain accelerometers. They are set to measure any head acceleration event over eight G – an equivalent to your head wobbling as you bounce on a trampoline. To verify each incident Nicole also videos each training and match.
Lincoln University PhD candidate Nicole Spriggs is studying head knocks in high school female rugby players. Photo: Claire Concannon / RNZ
While Nicole is focused on investigating incidences in female junior players, her University of Canterbury PhD colleague Stefan Henley is focused on doing the same with under 16 boys’ teams. All players also do an MRI and neurocognitive test before and after each season that Nicole and Stefan will use to investigate if there have been any changes in the structure and function of the players’ brains.
The research covered in this episode is funded by the Neurological Foundation, Canterbury Medical Research Foundation, Pacific Radiology and the Maurice & Phyllis Paykel Trust. Nicole Spriggs is funded by the Lincoln University Aoraki Doctoral Scholarship for Māori.
To learn more:
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Listen to the full Our Changing World episode.
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Stefan, Danyon and their supervisor Professor Nick Draper gave a presentation on their initial findings for the Neurological Foundation during Brain Awareness Month 2023.
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Some of the researchers involved in the study into head knocks with high school rugby players from Gisborne spoke to Nine to Noon in April 2022 about the study.
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Associate Professor Melanie Bussey spoke to Summer Times earlier this year about the University of Otago study commissioned by World Rugby.
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Dr Melanie Bussey spoke to Our Changing World in 2018 about her research into concussion.
