Could study into head injuries change women’s rugby?

Could study into head injuries change women’s rugby?Image source, Huw Evans Picture AgencyImage caption, Elinor Snowsill, Caryl James and Alecs Donovan all played international rugby for WalesByAwen MutemboBBC Sport WalesPublished41 minutes agoFormer players have backed ground-breaking new research into the impact of concussion in women’s rugby.Repeated blows to the head have been found to affect women differently to men, with female athletes more susceptible to concussion and reporting longer recovery times.Symptoms can also vary, with men commonly experiencing amnesia while women report prolonged headaches, mental fatigue and difficulty concentrating.But despite the findings, rugby’s concussion guidelines are still largely based solely on the men’s game – something ex-internationals say needs to change.Cardiff University’s medical engineering team is now aiming to create the first head impact assessment protocol designed specifically for female athletes.The study followed 30 players from the university’s women’s rugby team, using specialised mouthguards, cognitive tests and MRI imaging. Researchers hope to gather enough data by the end of the year to determine whether new guidelines can be set.”The female brain is different from the male brain and women’s rugby is different from male rugby, so if we were only to use the same safety threshold as we do for men, that would seem inconsistent with the evidence that we understand so far,” mentioned lead researcher Peter Theobald.’No game more important than your brain’Elinor Snowsill, capped 76 times during a 14-year international career, is among those backing the female-focused research.”We are not just mini versions of men,” she mentioned.”It is so important to understand our bodies and that we have systems in place that are best suited for us, not just taken from the men’s game.”There is no game [of rugby] that is more important than your brain.”It is the one thing you cannot replace. You can rehab any muscle or have a knee replacement, but you have to have your brain for the rest of your life. Nothing is more important than your health.”Image source, Calum CarpenterImage caption, Specially designed mouthguards record the number and force of head impacts during matches’Women have been let down’Uncertainty surrounds why women can experience concussion differently to men, although researchers point to brain structure and neck strength.This is alongside differences in the way the game is played, in strength and conditioning and the later introduction of women to the sport.But the lack of dedicated research into the women’s game is not unique to rugby with only 6% of sports science research solely based on female athletes, according to PhD student Freya Butcher, part of the research team.”We aim to contribute to that pool and gain a better understanding of the way that female physiology interacts with our sports,” she mentioned. While welcoming their work, former Wales wing Caryl James says it is concerning that only now research is being done into female athletes.”That really worries me and I feel women have definitely been let down over the years,” she mentioned. I’ve been playing rugby since I was eight, I never thought about concussion – until now