A NEW GAMEPLAN Elite riders, jockeys and cyclists understand the risks of falling, just as boxers and UFC fighters are prepared for the threat of head injury as part of their sports. Sadly, they are FOR SPORT-RELATED being joined by athletes in more sports – such as NFL, rugby, ice hockey, Australian Rules HEAD TRAUMA football and rugby league – but the issues are also highly prevalent for those in snow sports and, surprisingly, cheerleading. In the realm of high-performance athletics, Regardless of the discipline, head trauma poses a substantial issue with several grave recognizing and acknowledging risk is woven into repercussions, including loss of muscle strength, fine motor skills, speech, vision, hearing the fabric of participation. or taste, as well as long- or short-term changes in personality or behaviour, and depression. Within this challenging landscape, there is promising news; clinicians and medical technologists are improving methods of identifying type and extent of trauma as well as how to treat head injuries better. Technology is proving central to this. Arguably, the first step in improving this aspect of athlete welfare is to ensure better levels of understanding about the term 'concussion', which is misunderstood on two levels. • Firstly, it is a term liberally used but poorly understood. Concussion can be caused by whiplash, not simply a direct blow – in other words, it isn’t damaging the brain by hitting it directly, it is about causing the brain to hit or shear against the inside of the skull at speed. Consequently, you can be hit from behind and sustain damage to the front of the brain – this is called a contra-coup injury. And it doesn’t take much. A g- force of 90-to-100, equivalent to colliding with a wall at 20 mph, can cause enough whiplash to lead to a concussion. • Secondly, a common misconception about concussion is that brain injuries solely manifest with symptoms; they can also result in dysfunctional outcomes.