EWJ Dec 2023 - Journal - Page 48
Rugby Union’s Bid to Prevent
Brain Injuries
A recent article by Legal Director, Helen Kanczes in The Guardian revealed Rugby Union have
developed new and innovative technology to assist in identifying brain injuries in the field of play.
The data from the mouthguard in recording the level
of ‘g-force’ of an impact, could provide a more accurate insight into mechanism of any injury and result in
insurers and their legal teams being better able to
assess the liability risk.
What is it and why are we talking about it?
The technology consists of a smart mouthguard that
measures the G-force of an impact to a player’s head
in real time, feeding the information back via Bluetooth to an independent doctor. The player will automatically be withdrawn from the field if the force is
above 70g and 4,000 radians per second squared for
men, and 55g and 4,000 radians per second squared
for women. If such an impact does occur, the player
will undergo an immediate head impact assessment
and be withdrawn from play. There will then be a follow up after the match and then again two days later.
As the technology is still in its infancy, it is too early to
determine what the true effects of it will be. Having
said that however, it does look to be a useful marker in
identifying potential brain injuries at the earliest stage.
There can be no doubt this will lead to increased education in the identification of injury and perhaps
even prevention of a more serious brain injury and
CTE. Naturally, a reduction in brain injuries should,
in time, equate to a reduction in claims. This is only
the beginning and it will be interesting to see how this
field develops in the months and years to come.
The technology comes after decades of concern in
injury and sub-concussive impact in male and female
professional rugby players. Research conducted by
Rugby Union (2020) found that 20% of professional
players sustained at least one match concussion in the
2018 – 2019 season, and a report by Professional
Rugby Injury Surveillance Project (PRISP) found concussion was the most reported match injury, accounting for 28% of all in-match injuries in 2020 – 2021.
Author
Helen Kanczes
Legal Director
Clyde & Co LLP is a limited liability partnership
registered in England and Wales. Authorised and
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Indeed, the action against World Rugby for significant
loss as a result of brain injuries sustained in play, began
with just eight players in December 2020 and is now
set to increase to nearly 300. Given the alleged causal
links to Alzheimer’s disease from heading a football, it
would be no surprise to see this technology be picked
up by regulators for other contact sports as well.
But what does this mean for insurers?
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is thought
to be a neurodegenerative disease linked to rapid decelerations. This technology seeks to address the effect of frequent high impact collisions and identify at
an early stage who may be at risk of a brain injury,
even when symptoms may not be immediately obvious. The tech will add a further layer of insight into
concussion and sub-concussive impacts, to assist in
managing head injury and neurodegenerative disease
risk, above relying solely on current concussion spotters and neurological medic assessment tools which
have at times been subject to criticism.
Medico legal assessment of
claimants suffering traumatic brain
injury and psychological injury
arising from accidents and clinical
negligence.
Consulting rooms: London,
Birmingham, Exeter, Thames
Valley, Bristol & Manchester.
Co-editor and Author of Brain
Injury Claims, published by
We know the changes of CTE can only be detected by
analysing brain tissue ‘under the microscope’ (histological analysis) post-mortem. Whilst this technology
does not seek to enable early diagnosis of CTE cases,
it does add objective rigour to pitch-side concussion
assessment, allowing prompt monitoring of accumulated sub-concussive impacts. This should significantly
reduce the still unquantified potential for CTE to
occur.
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
Sweet and Maxwell.
46
DECEMBER 2023