On Wednesday 4th March 2015, concussion experts from the SRMRC and over 50 delegates from across the West Midlands and further afield came together for an interactive and informative evening at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.
Concussion: Facts, Fiction and the Future of Sport provided an opportunity for SRMRC researchers to share their knowledge of concussion and pioneering research with an audience that included members of local and regional sports clubs, medical professionals from the West Midlands, and representatives from national bodies such as the Football Association and the Rugby Football Union.
Dr Michael Grey and Professor Tony Belli opened the evening with insightful talks exploring the scale of concussion across the globe and explaining the pathophysiology of concussion, respectively. Mr Doug Hammond then presented his view as a Medical Doctor for a professional rugby team, which was followed up by Dr Zhangjie (Jack) Su and Mr David Davies presenting information about and some preliminary findings from their current study, RECOS, which is investigating the functional and metabolic responses to REpetitive COncussion in Sport. The evening culminated in an extremely informative and honest talk by Anthony Carter, a professional rugby player, who discussed the issue of concussion from the athlete’s perspective.
The evening sparked some interesting debates around the issues of sport-specific and age-specific rules and regulations following sport concussion, the development of concussion detection devices, and the application of guidelines for athletes who have been concussed more than once.
The RECOS team are still recruiting for their study, so if you would like any further information or to get involved please contact Dr Zhangjie (Jack) Su on 0121 371 6740 or z.su@bham.ac.uk, or Mr David Davies on 0121 371 6741 or david.davies@uhb.nhs.uk.
