Brain trauma

I had a chance to spend some time with Chris Nowinski at the the NFL Players' party in Dallas last week. He is leading the research about head trauma in sports, especially the NFL. I told him about wakeboarding and the types of falls. He is very interested in finding out more.

The concerning part is the rapid deceleration of the head when it comes into contact with the water after a fall. After speaking with him and reviewing his web site it has made me even more aware of the precautions needed after a hard fall. My advice- when ever anyone takes a good fall (such as the facepalnt you see on the CWB video on the front page) stop riding.

Be extra careful. Parents, even if your kid says he/she is fine, stop and wait a few days. Unless you are making a living at this there is no reason to risk it. Even those guys need to be careful. Check out some of these stories form "60 Minutes" and other broadcast TV shows.

http://www.sportslegacy.org/index.ph...s/tv-and-radio

David,

Perhaps this will finally lead to some pertinent research into the realm of water-related impacts and the degree of their physiological effect.

The actual term is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE

Think he'd test out the wake helmet hypothesis so we never have to see one of those threads again?? haha

that would be so great. but at the same time so funny. imagine asking that guy: "so, can you test if helmets would be helpful in falls". He'd give you one of those "are you kidding me" looks. Would be sweet to see the hard data though, like in football how a helmet might reduce an impact 15 fold, and in wakeboarding it would only reduce the impact 6 fold or something.

Helmets are mandatory when there are obstacles. INT always requires even though there are no obstacles. They serve a specific purpose to protect the head from blunt force trauma and work well for that. You would not want to contact a hard surface with your skull. The effectivenss of a helmet for CTE or concussions is unknown. We don't take the constant head hits that a football player does but his research into other sports such as soccer and basketball shows evidence of damage also.

All I am saying is be exra careful. When you take a hard hit to the head get out of the water and take it easy for a few days, concussed or not. Especially kids. Not worth the risk. I have not been good at that but will be in the future.

99.9% of time a helmet wont help on obstacles. I've seen face smashers but only full face would have helped.

I'm really interested in this, especially now that my brother, an avid wakeboarder/snowboarder, is on lifetime blood thinners for clots, one nasty bump to the head and he can stroke out. Now i find out i might have to take the same meds for life too....

had a scary fall this past summer that put me in the ER, luckily it was just bad whiplash and concussion and not the broken vertebra i thought it was. Ignorance is bliss but I'm glad more research is coming out to show the long term damages of these kinds of trauma to the head.

That would be awesome research, however they don't do research based strictly on whether or not it would be beneficial. Like most things, it's money driven. Research is the result of government grants (which have been drastically reduced and are more competitive than ever) or industry money which usually benefits the industry that's funding the research.