“Dead athletes’ brains show damage from concussions” says a January 26, 2009 CNN news headline just days before the Super Bowl. It refers to the announcement that American football players’ heads are being battered to the point of great danger.
Though seldom discussed, a solution may be found in the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize winning work of Ivan R. Schwab, of the University of California Davis, and the late Philip R.A. May of the University of California Los Angeles. Doctors Schwab and May explored and explained why woodpeckers don’t get headaches. Their work is summarized in three studies:
“Cure for a Headache,” Ivan R Schwab, British Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 86, 2002, p. 843.
“Woodpeckers and Head Injury,” Philip R.A. May, Joaquin M. Fuster, Paul Newman and Ada Hirschman, Lancet, vol. 307, no. 7957, February 28, 1976, pp. 454-5.
“Woodpeckers and Head Injury,” Philip R.A. May, Joaquin M. Fuster, Paul Newman and Ada Hirschman, Lancet, vol. 307, no. 7973, June 19, 1976, pp. 1347-8.
Here is a passage from Dr. May’s first paper:
Our preliminary findings lead to a reasonable practical speculation. Commonly used crash helmets and military helmets consist of a heavy, hard, shell, suspended from the skull by a harness and separated from the skull by an air space (fig. 3). It might be fruitful to explore the use of a lighter, thicker, form-fitting, firm but spongy helmet with a relatively thin and hard outer shell to protect against abrasion. Wherever practical, this should be combined with a protective neck collar to dampen sudden, unexpected, rotatory movements that could create shearing strains in brain tissue. (The high collars of old-fashioned military uniforms, and the vertex to shoulder casing of the medieval knight may have had some value in preventing shearing injury.) Crash safety precautions should include instruction in protective tightening of the head and neck muscles.
(Thanks to investigator Geri Sullivan for bringing this to our attention.)