Brain scans, high-tech mouthguards: Tackling the impact of school sport concussions
By Bridie Smith
Researchers investigating new ways to monitor concussion in students who play contact sports hope combining sleep studies with data from high-tech mouthguards will make detecting the condition faster and more objective.
Dr Spencer Roberts, from Deakin University’s centre for sport research, said players were generally only assessed if a collision was observed or if a player experienced symptoms and self-reported.
Haileybury rugby players Lucas Civitarese (second from left), Charlie Bell and Joe Nelson with their coach Aidan Ryan (left) and researcher Spencer Roberts.Credit: Justin McManus
However, because concussion symptoms were delayed, he said, assessing a player immediately after a collision rarely provided a full picture.
“It’s not like a hamstring injury where a player gets a tear which you can see under imaging,” Roberts said. “It’s very subjective.”
As part of the joint study between Deakin and Monash universities, members of Haileybury’s first XV rugby team have been wearing customised mouthguards since their season began in April.
The male students, aged 15 to 18, have also undertaken blood tests to identify specific biomarkers, brain scans to track any changes and wore wristbands to monitor sleep patterns and quality.
The mouthguards worn by Haileybury students can capture the magnitude and number of impacts.Credit: Justin McManus
Accessible within hours, the mouthguard data captures the magnitude and number of impacts, providing feedback to researchers, the school and medical staff.
Roberts said the study would in the longer-term test whether healthy sleep helped the brain recover faster from a concussion.
“We know how important sleep is for brain plasticity,” he said. “And there is evidence of sleep maybe being protective following concussions, but there’s not a lot [of research] looking at it in adolescence.”
Schools are closely watching how insurance policies covering amateur sport might be affected, after insurer Zurich last month removed concussion and traumatic injury from policies for new clients in all professional sports.
Haileybury’s rugby players have been wearing customised mouthguards since their season began in April.Credit: Justin McManus
Alison Smith from insurance broker AON, which has numerous independent schools on its books, said the group had not yet seen changes to the way concussion and trauma injuries were covered in policies.
Aidan Ryan, Haileybury’s head of rugby, said some data gathered this season had already resulted in faster diagnosis of concussion after a student reported symptoms days after a game.
Ryan said the student was sent for blood tests and a brain scan after the mouthguard data was reviewed. The data included the g-force generated in the student’s collision.
The scenario, Ryan said, proved how valuable the information collected on each player was.
Researcher Spencer Roberts (left) and rugby coach Aidan Ryan say the mouthguard trial has been valuable.Credit: Justin McManus
“What we were using before this was probably too blunt an instrument,” he said.
“For a community-level coach to say, ‘Oh, he’s got a concussion’ – it’s madness. If you had a car crash, you wouldn’t go to the local football coach and ask him if you had a brain injury.”
Ryan said parents had been keen for their children to participate in the study.
“Everyone is concerned and rightly so because it is a brain injury. We forget that concussion is a brain injury,” he said.
The data captured by the players’ mouthguards. Researchers, the school and medical staff can get results within hours of a game.Credit: Justin McManus
Ryan said that as a coach, using data to make earlier assessments on players’ wellbeing helped reinforce decisions, especially when students were reluctant to be sidelined for weeks.
“I worry most about the student who might have symptoms but doesn’t want to tell us,” he said.
“So this gives us the data to point to and say, ‘No, you need to sit this one out’.
“The game won’t fundamentally change. I just think how we look after children will, and how we embolden them to look after themselves will.”
Anita (second from left) and Danny Frawley with their daughters in 2019.Credit: Instagram
Ryan said that by taking time off, students were likely to extend their playing days.
Anita Frawley, the widow of AFL great Danny Frawley, welcomed the research project.
Her husband suffered about 20 concussions during his playing career, which included 240 games with St Kilda. The former Richmond coach died in 2019 and was posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head trauma.
“The more research that’s done, especially on young developing brains, the better,” Anita Frawley said. “Whatever comes out of it will be invaluable, and we will be able to pool our knowledge.”
The Frawleys’ daughters, Chelsea, Danielle and Keeley, went to Haileybury.
Chelsea and Danielle played Australian rules football for the Old Haileyburians while their father was coach and won a premiership in 2018, the year before their father’s death.
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