Why helmets don't prevent concussions -- and what might | David Camarillo

There was a study where near 90% of football players would NOT allow their children to play football. This guy did everything not to admit that fact. Simple yes or no would have sufficed

I have a theory when I play tackle football with no equipment we don’t smash each other we only tackle no ramming or spearing so what I’m guessing is that they feel secure when they have helmets and equipment

I watched this on tv and found the YouTube video on my phone to comment that this was the best explanation and proposal for CTE. The speaker breaks it down so well! Props!

In WWI after they introduced standard issue helmets the number of head injuries went up ... because the number of fatalities from head injuries went down. TheMoreYouKnow

Your presentation was very informative, Dr. Camarillo. Thank you and your team for this needed effort! When I boxed on our California high school boxing team, complete with lunchtime bouts, and the annual "fight night", my parents had the unfortunate experience of watching me get clobbered, after 3 knockdowns. My dad, who was then Chief of Internal Medicine residency program at a SF hospital, brought home an article from JAMA for me to read. This was in 1981 or 82. The article showed a walnut shell (representing the cranium) with a pea inside of it, the pea representing the brain. The article then went on to describe the whiplash effect that occurred, even with boxing headgear. I appreciated the information. I continued to do some sparring even on my college campus, but the sparring was light in comparison to those bouts. Today, I do have memory issues that startle both me and my wife, and my employer. I take statins, and asked my doctor if these statins could be contributing to my memory lapses. He recommended an evaluation, which is pending. My biggest concern now is my 10 year old daughter. She loves sports, which I encourage, but I will do my best to ensure she reaps the positives from such healthy activities, while minimizing any adverse consequences. Thanks again for the work you do!

christ, i expected more from comments on TE. The man is not saying that current helmets are useless, he's saying they are necessary but insufficient to prevent all likely traumas a person can suffer in specific activities.

he is so nice to look at. great talk!

Very good talk, enjoyed it alot!

Awesome findings!

So based on what I understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the 'whiplash-type phenomenon' happened because the impact initially only influenced the part of his head that was hit, causing that particular portion to go right as the rest of the head 'lags' behind and tries to catch up. As it 'lags', more of the head is gradually pulled along by the site of impact, resulting in his head rotating left until the rest of his head caught up with the sight of impact and dragged it to the right.

Very interesting talk.

Yay! I'm looking forward to seeing what he's come up with!

So basically as of right now, what they seem to think is that the shape of an NFL helmet, along with it's size, is not sufficient. The shape is insufficient, because when hit the wrong way, like in the clip he showed, the head can be rotated the wrong way, causing a whiplash motion. And the size is insufficient, because there is not enough room inside the helmet for proper padding to help the deceleration of the head immediately after the collision. But simply increasing the size of the helmet will likely not do any good, because a larger helmet means a larger target, making it more likely for the head to be involved in collisions that a normally sized helmet today would not cause. What is probably one of the best solutions is a new material for padding, one that can compress to better fit a curve for decelerating the head, at different levels of impact. As for what the CPSC should do in the meantime, is to create a model for what proper head deceleration should look like during impacts of certain speeds. This is something that even I could do, given a couple of accelerometers. This way certain materials that are used for helmet padding can be federally regulated to protect against different levels of impact (i.e. low speed impacts to high speed impacts). This is already something they do with the helmets they regulate today, when they test for helmet stress and impact distribution.

I think a helmet with a thin comfortable lining with an exterior layer of soft leather (circa 1920) would stop a large percentage of concussions because no one is going to head butt some one else wearing this type of helmet. Modern helmets give players a false sense of safety. Start at the youngest age and set a regulation that states a team cannot play if they use regular helmets. Advance the regulation every year and the players will learn as they grow to protect themselves and others. In 17 years it will be normal and head butts like the one in the example video won't be happening.

The "airbag" trigger idea should also be used on every Airlines, but instead it triggers a foam that encapsulates each passenger giving the added protection against impact.

That was excellent

the fact that i sat here and listened not watch but listened to this the whole time it played is crazy to me

How about "double helmet" with the balloon device at the outside the normal bike helmet? Double protection :)

particularly with his comments about airbags, I guess that his solution is active and not merely a new type of material it detects the acceleration and adjusts real time to that particular acceleration computers are pretty cheap these days, and the actual calculations involved are probably minimal

MiPS helmets are a type of helmet that are designed to prevent concussion. They use and internal and external she'll that are connected by a pin which breaks during an impact to prevent rotational forces reaching the brain