Jean De Villiers welcomes head injury precautions

“I think that what is being done at the moment to prevent head injuries is fantastic and the Boksmart system, which helps with the treatment of such injuries immediately after they occur, should be welcomed,” De Villiers asserts.

The BokSmart National Rugby Safety Programme (https://boksmart.co.za) is a comprehensive resource for the promotion of safer playing techniques and appropriate injury management guidelines.

De Villiers, who is a brand ambassador of Resolution Health Medical Scheme (Resolution Health) and its loyalty partner Zurreal, says that a significant component of school sports injury prevention is that of teaching correct methods and ensuring these are adhered to at school level.

“I think the coaching of better tackling techniques can prevent injuries, as a poor technique resulted in my first concussion.

“Having played rugby for close on 30 years, I think it is important to note that I have only been concussed twice. Once was at school when I got a direct blow from a knee to the side of the head and the other as a professional when one of my teammates kicked me on the head by accident.

“In both cases I missed two weeks of rugby,” says De Villiers, who is now playing rugby for the Leicester Tigers in England following his retirement from South African test rugby due to injury in September last year.

While contact sports remain a cherished part of many schools’ sporting traditions, director of product development at Agility Global Health Solutions [Africa] Dr Jacques Snyman, says that children participating in these kinds of sports do stand an increased chance of sustaining injuries.

“According to an Australian study into the rates of concussion in children aged six to 16, it was found that organised sports accounted for six times more severe concussive head injuries than other physical leisure activities1,” Dr Snyman observes.

“On the other hand, physical sports do provide a healthy balance in school life as they serve as an outlet for restless energy and the strenuous exercise can help many children to better focus on their studies. There are many positive life lessons to be learnt from team sports in particular; however, a number of those currently played in South African schools do hold the risk of injuries.”
While people participating in contact sports could suffer a wide range of injuries, head and spinal cord injuries are of particular concern because they can potentially have profound and lifelong consequences. While adults are able to make informed decisions about the risks they take when participating in contact sports, Dr Snyman notes that it is up to parents to weigh up the risk of serious injury with the benefits such sports may offer their children.

“It has been estimated that the rate of traumatic brain injury in children younger than 16 is around 180 per 100 000, which equates to 0,18% and most of these are characterised as ‘mild’2. When it comes to children, however, any concussion should be considered in a serious light as their brains are still developing,” Dr Snyman says.

There are a number of precautions that can be introduced in an attempt to make contact sports safer, but the interventions are not always unqualified successes. For example, some studies have suggested that when helmets are introduced as a protective measure in children’s contact sports, the chance of concussive injury actually increased because the children adopted more risky behaviour in their style of play2.

“The difficulty is, if we look at any organised physical sport, there is some degree of risk. As such, if we are too protective of our children, then they will not be able to do any sport at all and this presents a whole range of other potential health problems, including obesity and type 2 diabetes,” Dr Snyman warns.

“It should also be considered that healthy behaviours, such as regular exercise, are more likely to stick in adult life if they are introduced from a young age, and school sports play an important role in establishing fitness as a lasting lifestyle choice.

“The efforts of Boksmart [https://boksmart.co.za] in providing safety guidelines for school sport and injury management are to be welcomed, as these can certainly help to mitigate the risks that are a reality of physical sports.”

Dr Snyman also welcomed the efforts of seasoned rugby professionals, such as De Villiers, for leading by example and raising awareness about safer play techniques.

“We would encourage schools to implement pragmatic precautions and urge parents to remain vigilant and demand that reasonable safety protocols are followed,” Dr Snyman concludes.

References:

1 Concussive head injury in children and adolescents related to sports and other leisure physical activities (G J Browne and L T Lam, 2005) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2492044/

2 Can we manage sport related concussion in children the same as in adults? (P McCrory, A Collie,, V Anderson and G Davis 2004) http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/38/5/516.full
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