- Title
- A Case-Control Study of Tackle-Based Head Injury Assessment (HIA) Risk Factors in the National Rugby League
- Creator
- Gardner, Andrew J.; Iverson, Grant L.; Edwards, Suzi; Tucker, Ross
- Relation
- Sports Medicine - Open Vol. 7, Issue 17 November 2021, no. 84
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40798-021-00377-9
- Publisher
- Springer
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2021
- Description
- Background: The tackle is the in-game activity carrying the greatest risk for concussion in rugby. A recent evaluation of tackle characteristics in rugby union precipitated a rule modification to reduce head impact risk during tackles. This study aims to replicate the work conducted in rugby union by examining the association between tackle characteristics and head injury events in professional rugby league. Methods: There were 446 tackles resulting in a head injury assessment (HIA) and 5,694 tackles that did not result in a head injury from two National Rugby League (NRL) seasons that were reviewed and coded. Tackle height, body position of players, and contact area on an opponent’s body were evaluated, with the propensity of each situation to cause an HIA calculated as HIAs per 1000 events. Results: The propensity for tacklers to sustain a head injury was 0.99 HIAs per 1000 tackles, 1.74-fold greater than for the ball carrier (0.57 HIAs per 1000 tackles). There was a 3.2-fold higher risk for an HIA when the tackler was upright compared to bent-at-the-waist. The greatest risk of a tackler HIA occurred when head contact was very low (knee, boot) or high (head and elbow). HIAs were most common following head-to-head impacts. The lowest propensity for tackler HIA was found when the tackler’s head was in proximity with the ball carrier’s torso. Conclusions :The result of this study replicated the findings in professional rugby union. This has implications for the injury prevention initiatives implemented to reduce HIA risk because the majority of injuries are sustained by the tackler.
- Subject
- tackle; injury prevention; head impact events; head injury assessment; concussion
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1474147
- Identifier
- uon:49217
- 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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