Protecting heads in sports

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2019

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The death last week of boxer Patrick Day, four days after he was stretchered out of the ring in a coma, is the latest reminder of how vulnerable sportsmen and women are to traumatic brain injury. During the latest Ashes series the Australian batsman Steve Smith was temporarily retired for one test after being struck on the helmet by a bouncer. The current World Cup Rugby has been affected too, with Welsh fly half Dan Biggar withdrawn from a game against Uruguay having received head injuries in two previous matches. In this edition of Discovery, Roland Pease talks to engineers at Imperial College and Loughborough University using the latest techniques to understand the dynamics of blows to the head, and to improve helmet protection. And to experts and Rugby players at Swansea University seeking to make precision measurements of real-life head movements with the help of gum shields stuffed with electronics. Picture credit: Mazdak Ghajari

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is discovery from the BBC. I'm Roland Pease
0:08.8	bracing myself for a loud noise. Firing!
0:14.0	Oh, that is loud!
0:18.0	That is loud.
0:20.0	See why you got the ear protection on.
0:22.0	The sound of an air cannon at Loughbury University Sports Technology Institute
0:26.0	firing a cricket ball at almost 100 kilometers per hour.
0:31.0	Amidst all the noise, you couldn't hear the clatter as the ball thumped into a crash-test
0:36.3	dummy's head. But my hosts have high-speed cameras that can capture the impact at 50,000 frames a second.
0:44.0	And that's because they want to make cricket safer.
0:47.0	The Australian cricketer Steve Smith suffered a blow,
0:50.0	something like that during the latest ashes series and was
0:53.8	invalided out of the rest of the remaining second test. But it's not only
0:58.5	cricket last week American boxer Patrick Day died four days after being stretched out of the ring in a coma and
1:05.8	Welsh fly half Dan Bigger missed a game against Uruguay during the current Rugby World
1:10.9	Cup having received head injuries in two previous matches.
1:15.0	Sport is energetic and the head is vulnerable.
1:19.0	I'm sure you know that traumatic brain injury is a very complex problem. It's called a silent epidemic
1:25.0	because people are suffering from it and still they cannot, there is no objective
1:29.9	way to show that actually they have had any structural damage to their brain or they can
1:35.8	diagnose the TBI traumatic brain injury and that is a big challenge.
1:40.2	This is Masnak Kajari and he symbolises what this program is about because he's an engineer
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.