Sunday, December 4, 2011
Centre Sports Daily News Recomendation
Center Sports Daily news blog recommends Neil Hill Projects for blog management and website creation. With over 30 years internet experience they will ensure that your web presence is alive and well. Find out more about their Website Creation and Website Designing Service.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Alaia Surfboards Tom Wegener Re-discovers the Alaia
Alaia Surfboards
Surfing in the ancient style on a finless wood board has been overlooked for many years now. In Hawaii the board was called alaia. In Japan it was called itaka. There is evidence of early surfers riding alaia style surfboards from all around the world but in the early 1900’s this style vanished. Read more about the Alaia
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Brain Injury In Sport
Another case for Helmets to Prevent Sports Injuries
Found this article which is a great follow on to the previous post about Helmet in Sport
The Daniel Bell effect: sports injuries and the brain explained
Author Michael Woodward
Associate Professor of Medicine at Austin Health
Published: March 31, 2011
Disclosure Statement
Michael Woodward does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
Our goal is to ensure the content is not compromised in any way. We therefore ask all authors to disclose any potential conflicts of interest before publication.
Icon-cc Content Licence
Licenced as Public Domain under Creative Commons. See Creative Commons - Attribution Licence
Former AFL player Daniel Bell is seeking compensation for brain damage linked to multiple concussions. AAP
What happens to the brain in a collision?
A blow to the head can cause any form of damage to the brain. On the serious side, it can cause a large haemorrhage and damage to a large amount of brain tissue.
But the most common injury after concussion is quite small – a minor amount of bruising, limited damage to brain tissue, and some swelling. You can usually recover very quickly.
How long does recovery take?
Normally after the person regains consciousness the brain moves back to near-normal functioning.
But if you conduct subtle neurological testing, you find that the person remains impaired after an episode of concussion for quite some time. Depending on the severity of the blow, this impairment can last for hours, days or even weeks.
We don’t know the underlying nerve cell explanation for the varying rates of recovery. It’s not just related to swelling and bruising.
What we do know is that a person’s ability to recall information, to process information, and to rapidly solve a problem, can be impaired for varying lengths of time after a concussion.
What are the long-term effects of multiple concussions?
Repeated episodes of concussion can have an additive effect. So if you’re concussed several times or several dozen times you’re more likely to develop long-term consequences than if you’ve only had one or two episodes of concussion.
How do the impacts of head trauma manifest over time?
I think we can see that most easily in boxers, where repeated head injuries or head trauma from boxing can lead to a form of dementia. We’ve even given it a name – it’s called boxers dementia or dementia pugilistica.
But even more worryingly, people who have been knocked unconscious are actually more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, even decades later.
We’ve only got to look at the pictures of Mohammad Ali to see a person who has had not only slowing of his cognitive functions but also motor consequences of repeated brain injury – he’s developed a form of Parkinson’s as a result of his professional sport.
How widespread is head trauma in sport?
We don’t know how widespread reduced cognitive function is in professional sport because we’ve never taken it seriously enough.
As far as coaches and trainers, if a person wakes up after being knocked unconscious and can stand on their feet and can count backwards from ten, they’re back on the field.
That’s not necessarily the best approach and I think we need to focus on the science a little better.
We’ve taken things like knee injury very seriously for a long period of time. It’s now time to start looking at the consequences, and responses to, brain injury.
How should we respond to brain injury?
The first thing is to find out whether the person is still impaired from the episode. You can use things like computerised cognitive testing batteries.
CogState is one device that has been developed in Melbourne in conjunction with the University of Melbourne, which measures cognitive function in people with memory problems. It can also be used in a modified form to test how impaired a person is after an episode of concussion.
This type of testing could be done at the side of the field to find out if a person is ready to go back out during the game. Or it can be done to later to find out whether they’re ready to return a week or two weeks later.
CogState is already being used in Gridiron leagues in the US and potentially by one Melbourne football Club. There is also another company that has a large share of the computerised testing after sports injuries.
Computerised cognitive testing could almost be mandated in professional sports. Just like you can’t get back behind the wheel after a serious illness until the doctor gives you permission – a professional sports person should be required to show they are fit to continue playing with a test such as this.
How can players reduce the risk of injury?
There’s two things we can do to reduce the risks.
Firstly, make sure people don’t suffer a blow to the head that’s sufficient enough to concuss. That can really only be done by changing the rules of the sport.
Secondly, we can reduce the effect of a blow to the head using things like helmets, in selected groups.
I don’t want to suggest what should be done to the AFL but there should be a strong obligation for players to wear helmets after they have sustained two or three concussions.
Helmet use could be mandated after several episodes of concussion to protect players from long-term brain injury.
What occurs in our brain that causes us to forget things?
People have trouble with memory when their brain call connections are damaged. These connections are called synapses.
If we can’t attend to information, we can’t lay down a memory.
The second step is consolidation of that information into the storage part of the brain, and that’s largely centred on the hippocampus and the temporal regions of the brain.
Thirdly, we need to access that memory later. That comes back to the frontal regions of the brain – they’re important to allow us to get back into those memory banks and recall a piece of information.
So there are three processes – attention, consolidation of a memory, and then accessing that memory later on, and they require different neural structures.
The common abnormality that can affect all those processes is loss of brain connections: loss of synapses.
That leads to what causes the loss of synapses. That can be due to a number of things: head injury, poor vascular supply such as stroke, damage from neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia.
There are many different processes that can affect the memory sequences.
When do these memory lapses become serious?
If you are having problems with memory after a number of concussions, the first step is to assess how much brain function has been lost.
There is an argument that all elite sports players should have cognitive testing before they even go onto the field, so we’ve got a base line from which we can compare any cognitive decline.
When a player is concussed, we can say ‘before you started the game you scored X, now you’ve clearly come down. Even though you may be functioning at a higher level that others, you’ve still come down from your baseline.'
Found this article which is a great follow on to the previous post about Helmet in Sport
The Daniel Bell effect: sports injuries and the brain explained
Author Michael Woodward
Associate Professor of Medicine at Austin Health
Published: March 31, 2011
Disclosure Statement
Michael Woodward does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
Our goal is to ensure the content is not compromised in any way. We therefore ask all authors to disclose any potential conflicts of interest before publication.
Icon-cc Content Licence
Licenced as Public Domain under Creative Commons. See Creative Commons - Attribution Licence
Former AFL player Daniel Bell is seeking compensation for brain damage linked to multiple concussions. AAP
What happens to the brain in a collision?
A blow to the head can cause any form of damage to the brain. On the serious side, it can cause a large haemorrhage and damage to a large amount of brain tissue.
But the most common injury after concussion is quite small – a minor amount of bruising, limited damage to brain tissue, and some swelling. You can usually recover very quickly.
How long does recovery take?
Normally after the person regains consciousness the brain moves back to near-normal functioning.
But if you conduct subtle neurological testing, you find that the person remains impaired after an episode of concussion for quite some time. Depending on the severity of the blow, this impairment can last for hours, days or even weeks.
We don’t know the underlying nerve cell explanation for the varying rates of recovery. It’s not just related to swelling and bruising.
What we do know is that a person’s ability to recall information, to process information, and to rapidly solve a problem, can be impaired for varying lengths of time after a concussion.
What are the long-term effects of multiple concussions?
Repeated episodes of concussion can have an additive effect. So if you’re concussed several times or several dozen times you’re more likely to develop long-term consequences than if you’ve only had one or two episodes of concussion.
How do the impacts of head trauma manifest over time?
I think we can see that most easily in boxers, where repeated head injuries or head trauma from boxing can lead to a form of dementia. We’ve even given it a name – it’s called boxers dementia or dementia pugilistica.
But even more worryingly, people who have been knocked unconscious are actually more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease, even decades later.
We’ve only got to look at the pictures of Mohammad Ali to see a person who has had not only slowing of his cognitive functions but also motor consequences of repeated brain injury – he’s developed a form of Parkinson’s as a result of his professional sport.
How widespread is head trauma in sport?
We don’t know how widespread reduced cognitive function is in professional sport because we’ve never taken it seriously enough.
As far as coaches and trainers, if a person wakes up after being knocked unconscious and can stand on their feet and can count backwards from ten, they’re back on the field.
That’s not necessarily the best approach and I think we need to focus on the science a little better.
We’ve taken things like knee injury very seriously for a long period of time. It’s now time to start looking at the consequences, and responses to, brain injury.
How should we respond to brain injury?
The first thing is to find out whether the person is still impaired from the episode. You can use things like computerised cognitive testing batteries.
CogState is one device that has been developed in Melbourne in conjunction with the University of Melbourne, which measures cognitive function in people with memory problems. It can also be used in a modified form to test how impaired a person is after an episode of concussion.
This type of testing could be done at the side of the field to find out if a person is ready to go back out during the game. Or it can be done to later to find out whether they’re ready to return a week or two weeks later.
CogState is already being used in Gridiron leagues in the US and potentially by one Melbourne football Club. There is also another company that has a large share of the computerised testing after sports injuries.
Computerised cognitive testing could almost be mandated in professional sports. Just like you can’t get back behind the wheel after a serious illness until the doctor gives you permission – a professional sports person should be required to show they are fit to continue playing with a test such as this.
How can players reduce the risk of injury?
There’s two things we can do to reduce the risks.
Firstly, make sure people don’t suffer a blow to the head that’s sufficient enough to concuss. That can really only be done by changing the rules of the sport.
Secondly, we can reduce the effect of a blow to the head using things like helmets, in selected groups.
I don’t want to suggest what should be done to the AFL but there should be a strong obligation for players to wear helmets after they have sustained two or three concussions.
Helmet use could be mandated after several episodes of concussion to protect players from long-term brain injury.
What occurs in our brain that causes us to forget things?
People have trouble with memory when their brain call connections are damaged. These connections are called synapses.
If we can’t attend to information, we can’t lay down a memory.
The second step is consolidation of that information into the storage part of the brain, and that’s largely centred on the hippocampus and the temporal regions of the brain.
Thirdly, we need to access that memory later. That comes back to the frontal regions of the brain – they’re important to allow us to get back into those memory banks and recall a piece of information.
So there are three processes – attention, consolidation of a memory, and then accessing that memory later on, and they require different neural structures.
The common abnormality that can affect all those processes is loss of brain connections: loss of synapses.
That leads to what causes the loss of synapses. That can be due to a number of things: head injury, poor vascular supply such as stroke, damage from neurodegenerative conditions such as dementia.
There are many different processes that can affect the memory sequences.
When do these memory lapses become serious?
If you are having problems with memory after a number of concussions, the first step is to assess how much brain function has been lost.
There is an argument that all elite sports players should have cognitive testing before they even go onto the field, so we’ve got a base line from which we can compare any cognitive decline.
When a player is concussed, we can say ‘before you started the game you scored X, now you’ve clearly come down. Even though you may be functioning at a higher level that others, you’ve still come down from your baseline.'
Monday, May 9, 2011
Is there a case for helmets in rugby.
Article from the Roar.
Is there a real case for helmets to be worn by rugby plays. He is a very informative article from the roar about such a question. I wear one but I am older and no better.
If you break an ankle, rupture an ACL, dislocate a shoulder and with good medical treatment and the right kind of rehabilitation, a rugby player will eventually be back on the field, little the worse for wear. But that isn’t necessarily so if a player suffers a concussion which, make no mistake, is a brain injury.
Once a player sustains a concussion, he has to cross his fingers that it doesn’t happen again, because if it does, he may be advised to call it a day.
And this kind of injury keeps happening to players at all levels.
Berrick Barnes had to sit in the stands for a while, and now Richie McCaw has had to withdraw from a game citing post-concussion precaution.
Apart from the danger to the players themselves, are we as spectators, to be denied the pleasure of seeing star players perform?
By the time various worldwide comps are completed and the World Cup rolls around, it’s a lottery as to who will be ruled out due to a concussive knock.
Maybe, it’s time the IRB allowed helmets in rugby. But when I make that suggestion, I’m not talking about the kind worn in American football.
I’m talking about the kind worn in ice hockey, which is a much smaller helmet – more of a cap that sits on top of the skull.
There’s been quite a lot of thought put into designing better hockey helmets, particularly in Canada at the University of Ottawa’s impact science lab.
Traditionally, a hockey helmet’s shell is made of vinyl nitrile, a substance that disperses force from the point of contact.
The liner is usually made of expanded polypropylene foam. But a newer design, called a Shock Bonnet, is more flexible, conforms to the wearer’s head, and is separated from the external shell by a set of 18 hollow thermoplastic shock absorbers.
On impact, these absorbers compress to suck up the energy of a hit.
The suggestion of such a helmet for rugby will inevitably introduce the ‘seat belt’ argument.
It was once thought that putting seat-belts in cars would make drivers feel invulnerable and therefore drive recklessly.
But when belts were introduced, it was found that driving patterns didn’t change.
Similarly, introducing hockey-style helmets to rugby wouldn’t result in reckless play because, like Sydney-driving, it’s already on the edge of reckless.
The rugby pick-and-drive is a head-first charge.
But it’s not met head-on, so they’d be no question of a helmet-protected head-to-head contest mainly because rugby players know that that’s a good way to break a neck vertebrae.
A well-designed rugby helmet would protect against the errant knee or elbow in a tackle or at the breakdown.
And those kinds of collisions are becoming more fraught as players get bigger and bulkier.
When you have people like Guthro Steenkamp or Neemia Tialata, both around 1.87m, 127kg, charging into rucks, you don’t want your unprotected head in the way.
However, it must be stated that even the newest and best helmets wouldn’t eliminate rugby concussions.
But neuro-researchers around the rugby-playing world agree that hockey-style shell helmets would certainly reduce their likelihood, and when they did occur, make them less severe.
Sports Injury Clinic
Sports Injury Clinic opened at Sydney. Longy Nguyen has been treating sports injuries for over 40 years. He has had charge of the some of the greatest sports persons in the world. Visit his website for more information about his treatments or read about his treatment of a dislocated shoulder of one of rugby leagues greats.
Is there a real case for helmets to be worn by rugby plays. He is a very informative article from the roar about such a question. I wear one but I am older and no better.
If you break an ankle, rupture an ACL, dislocate a shoulder and with good medical treatment and the right kind of rehabilitation, a rugby player will eventually be back on the field, little the worse for wear. But that isn’t necessarily so if a player suffers a concussion which, make no mistake, is a brain injury.
Once a player sustains a concussion, he has to cross his fingers that it doesn’t happen again, because if it does, he may be advised to call it a day.
And this kind of injury keeps happening to players at all levels.
Berrick Barnes had to sit in the stands for a while, and now Richie McCaw has had to withdraw from a game citing post-concussion precaution.
Apart from the danger to the players themselves, are we as spectators, to be denied the pleasure of seeing star players perform?
By the time various worldwide comps are completed and the World Cup rolls around, it’s a lottery as to who will be ruled out due to a concussive knock.
Maybe, it’s time the IRB allowed helmets in rugby. But when I make that suggestion, I’m not talking about the kind worn in American football.
I’m talking about the kind worn in ice hockey, which is a much smaller helmet – more of a cap that sits on top of the skull.
There’s been quite a lot of thought put into designing better hockey helmets, particularly in Canada at the University of Ottawa’s impact science lab.
Traditionally, a hockey helmet’s shell is made of vinyl nitrile, a substance that disperses force from the point of contact.
The liner is usually made of expanded polypropylene foam. But a newer design, called a Shock Bonnet, is more flexible, conforms to the wearer’s head, and is separated from the external shell by a set of 18 hollow thermoplastic shock absorbers.
On impact, these absorbers compress to suck up the energy of a hit.
The suggestion of such a helmet for rugby will inevitably introduce the ‘seat belt’ argument.
It was once thought that putting seat-belts in cars would make drivers feel invulnerable and therefore drive recklessly.
But when belts were introduced, it was found that driving patterns didn’t change.
Similarly, introducing hockey-style helmets to rugby wouldn’t result in reckless play because, like Sydney-driving, it’s already on the edge of reckless.
The rugby pick-and-drive is a head-first charge.
But it’s not met head-on, so they’d be no question of a helmet-protected head-to-head contest mainly because rugby players know that that’s a good way to break a neck vertebrae.
A well-designed rugby helmet would protect against the errant knee or elbow in a tackle or at the breakdown.
And those kinds of collisions are becoming more fraught as players get bigger and bulkier.
When you have people like Guthro Steenkamp or Neemia Tialata, both around 1.87m, 127kg, charging into rucks, you don’t want your unprotected head in the way.
However, it must be stated that even the newest and best helmets wouldn’t eliminate rugby concussions.
But neuro-researchers around the rugby-playing world agree that hockey-style shell helmets would certainly reduce their likelihood, and when they did occur, make them less severe.
Sports Injury Clinic
Sports Injury Clinic opened at Sydney. Longy Nguyen has been treating sports injuries for over 40 years. He has had charge of the some of the greatest sports persons in the world. Visit his website for more information about his treatments or read about his treatment of a dislocated shoulder of one of rugby leagues greats.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Pre Tour warm up for Golden Oldies in Fukuoka
Darwin Stubbies are doing a pre-tour trip around Japan before the 19th Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival in Fukuoka in 2012
We are looking for Japanese Golden Oldies Rugby Clubs to play on how pre-tour trip around Japan.
We are hopping that you may have a list of Japanese Golden Oldies Rugby Clubs with address and contact details. danpanapa@bigpond.com.au.
Information we are after is very important to how we plan how pre-tour so if you can send the details A.S.A.P.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
2012 Golden Oldies Rugby Festival in Japan
Japan to Hold Golden Oldies Tournament.
From the 28th of October to the 4th of November, 2012 the City of Fukuoka, Japan is set to host the Golden Oldies Rugby festival. This will be a first for Japan.
Fukuoka was voted 14 in the 2010 poll of the worlds most livable cities. Fukuoka is known for the beautiful green spaces in a city setting.
With the recent disaster in Japan I would image plans may be changed. I only hope that it will go on for the sake of the Japanese people. I would imagine it is/was to be a wonderful tournament. The Japanese do things really well especially with Fukuoka being considered Japans sporting capital.
Fukuoka was on the south western coast well away for the badily affected areas. But the damage to Japans infastructure may make it impossible to hold the tournament. I will post any updates as they come in.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tour of Battlefields by Rugby Golden Oldies
Golden Oldies Rugby team to tour the battlefields WWI and WWII
The Eastwood Charcoals Golden Oldies Rugby Team are going on tour. They will visit the Battlefields of Gallipoli, Western Front,and Normandy before heading to the 2008 Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival in Scotland.This will be a once in a lifetime chance to visit places where Anzac legends were born. So, if you would like to join a group of true Golden Oldies and visit some great places please contact:- Ian Hay or Glen Fonti on 0418968199 or 0428987708 for more details
The Eastwood Charcoals Golden Oldies Rugby Team are going on tour. They will visit the Battlefields of Gallipoli, Western Front,and Normandy before heading to the 2008 Golden Oldies World Rugby Festival in Scotland.This will be a once in a lifetime chance to visit places where Anzac legends were born. So, if you would like to join a group of true Golden Oldies and visit some great places please contact:- Ian Hay or Glen Fonti on 0418968199 or 0428987708 for more details
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