Research professors from Purdue University where on hand at the Indiana State Museum on Thursday, for a presentation on concussions in youth sports. The professors are part of the Purdue Neurotrauma Group that has been studying youth concussions for the past several years including their long term impact, treatment methods, and possible technology to help prevent repeated head trauma. Professor Thomas Talavage was among the three that spoke Thursday, and says that their research has discovered repeated head injuries are causing changes in brain chemistry and metabolism in players that have never even been diagnosed with a concussion. Part of that may be, according to their findings, it takes the brain several months to fully recover from head trauma and with children engaged in sports year round the brain never has time to recover. "You see all these big groups talking about the money they're investing, the money they're trying to do to solve this problem. The truth is they're just solving the question of how long will this kid will be out, and when can he potentially return to play, rather than how do we actually prevent this, and how do we prevent these kids from being hurt," said Talavage. Professor Eric Nauman, who also spoke at the presentation, says that long term evidence shows that children who participate in sports with repeated head trauma show significantly different brain development than their peers. Part of the group's efforts also includes concussion prevention, where they are working on new technology for helmets that would absorb energy rather than disperse it across the players head. "Standards that are out there for helmets were developed I think in 1973 or 1976, and they haven't changed. It would be almost trivial for us to deliver these things in six to eight months if there was funding available," said Nauman. Nauman notes that researchers already have the technology that create more effective helmets that would protect players and include sensors so scientists can study the hits they take--he even goes as far as to note that existing technology could development helmets that could automatically call penalties in football. The issue, according to the professors, is there is a lack of funds and support in concussion prevention and without changes in helmet standards the new technology would not be useful.
