- Title
- Tackle Risk Factors for Head Injury Assessments (HIAs) in Sub-Elite Rugby League and Recommendations for Prevention: Head Contacts from Upright Tackles Increase the HIA Risk to Both Ball Carrier and Tackler
- Creator
- Lang, Martin A.; Tucker, Ross; Edwards, Suzi; Iverson, Grant L.; Gardner, Andrew J.
- Relation
- Sports Medicine - Open Vol. 10, no. 43
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40798-024-00696-7
- Publisher
- SpringerOpen
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2024
- Description
- Background: The rugby league tackle has been identified as the game event with the greatest propensity for a clinically diagnosed concussion. This study aims to replicate the work conducted in professional rugby league and rugby union by examining Head Injury Assessment (HIA) events to determine the associated tackle characteristics that increase concussion risk in sub-elite rugby league players. This comparison between competition levels is important due to the less developed physiological and tackle proficiency characteristics of sub-elite rugby league players and the fewer resources available for an on-field diagnosis, compared to the elite level of the sport. Results: Tackles resulting in Head Injury Assessments (HIAs, n = 131) and 2,088 tackles that did not result in a head injury were identified and coded from one season of the 2019 Queensland Cup. The body position of both ball carrier and tackler, tackle height, and body contact areas were evaluated. The propensity for tacklers to undergo a head injury assessment was 1.49 HIAs per 1,000 tackles, equating to a 2.5-fold higher risk than that of the ball carrier (0.59 HIAs per 1,000 tackles). The risk for an HIA was 2.75-fold greater when the tackler was upright (2.89 HIAs per 1,000 tackles) compared to a bent-at-the-waist tackler (1.05 HIAs per 1,000 tackles). The greatest risk for the tackler and ball carrier sustaining an HIA occurred when the tackle height was high, with head-to-head contact having the greatest propensity for an HIA (44.37 HIAs per 1,000 tackles). HIA risk was also greater for both players when the ball carrier did not employ an evasion strategy (3.73 HIAs per 1,000 tackles). Conclusions: The study replicates results from research in elite rugby league and rugby union. A combination of higher head contact/proximity and upright body position significantly increase an HIA risk. Tackler head position and ball carrier evasion behaviours also affect risk, suggesting that injury prevention strategies designed to reduce tackle height and improve tackle technique by focusing on head position, body position, and in a novel finding, ball carrier evasion, may reduce head injury risk in sub-elite rugby league players.
- Subject
- head injury assessment; mild traumatic brain injury; head impact events; tackle events; head injury prevention
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1507703
- Identifier
- uon:56055
- Identifier
- ISSN:2199-1170
- Rights
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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