Researchers from the University of Queensland have uncovered the hidden history of concussion in sport and found that the brain trauma crisis has a long and complex history.
Dr. Stephen Townsend from UQs School for Movement and Nutrition Sciences And The Queensland Center for Olympic and Paralympic Studies led a team of experts to write a special edition of the book Journal of Sports History focused on sports concussion.
The research challenges assumptions that the long-term dangers of concussion are a new and unforeseeable problem that only affects professional football players.
Through nine essays, we present evidence that the brain trauma crisis is the product of long-term historical processes across a wide range of sports.
We also explore the hidden history of how brain trauma caused by concussion can impact athletes’ families and the broader community.”
Dr. Stephen Townsend from UQ’s School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences and the Queensland Center for Olympic and Paralympic Studies
In addition to studies of North American football, there are analyzes of the historical silence of concussion among Australian Indigenous athletes, victims of homicide and domestic violence, professional wrestlers, and the mothers of brain-damaged athletes.
There is also an analysis of the first recorded case of brain trauma in sports used as a legal defense for a major crime: the 1935 trial of boxer Del Fontaine, who murdered his girlfriend Hilda Meek.
Dr. Townsend said the recent rapid increase in research into concussions made it seem like an emerging problem, but this study found that was not the case.
“There is increasing evidence that sports brain trauma is associated with long-term brain diseases such as chronic trauma encephalopathy, Parkinsonism and other forms of dementia,” said Dr. Townsend.
“However, officials, athletes and medical personnel have long known about the dangers of sports concussion.
“This research is part of a new understanding that solving the concussion crisis requires knowledge of the social and cultural factors that influence concussion-related behavior.
“Examining past knowledge about concussions, which has been hidden or ignored for decades, can help guide ethical and evidence-based approaches to one of the most vexing problems in modern sports.”
The special edition of the Journal of Sports History is the first to conduct a specific historical study on sports concussions.
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