BOSTON — During football practice at Walpole High School, direct hits on the field are closely regulated
“We’re under pretty strict guidelines. We are only allowed to hit one day a week just for concussion reasons,” said Ron Dowd who is the Athletic Director and Hockey coach at Walpole High.
The Walpole Timberwolves Athletic Director says reducing concussion-related injuries has been a major focus for more than a decade.
However, a new brain injury study by the Boston University CTE Center reports 40% of the brains they studied showed signs of injury.
“We expected we would see some pathology but surprised at the number of young folks who had chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE,” said Associate Professor Thor Stein, who was involved in a study published on Monday that focused on young people 30 and under who played contact sports.
The study looked at 152 donated brains of young people. Professor Stein says besides the high number, something else stood out.
“Many of these people were amateurs. They weren’t the professional… (people) who played at high school and college sports and yet they had developed the disease,” said Stein.
He says it’s the length of time, not the amount of hits that determines the extent of injury.
“It’s really the years of play, the duration that you played these sports, and not so much the number of concussions — the big hits,” said Stein.
So. in Walpole — like every public high school in the state the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association or MIAA now requires an athletic trainer to be on the field during games.
“It’s mandated for varsity football games there’s an athletic trainer on each sideline. So that’s a major change that’s happened recently,” said Amanda Randall who is the Athletic Trainer at Walpole High.
And Walpole goes a step further.
“I’m here for practice and game coverage to oversee to make sure athletes stay safe on and off the field,” said Randall.
Right now, these studies look at the brains of people who have passed away.
Professor Stein adds that recent advances studying Alzheimer’s may be able to be applied to CTE and that could give doctors an ongoing image of any possible injuries even from a young age.
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