CHASING ANSWERS ON CONCUSSION
at the time — and it was something in subsequent years I became interested looking back at that particular time.”
Tucker’s symptoms were not dissimilar.
“You could feel the effects for about four weeks post that concussion,” she recalled.
“Just really foggy, no concentration (and I) just couldn’t focus on anything and couldn’t really get anything right.
“I think I had a couple of days off after it but going back into work, it was again that haziness. You just couldn’t focus.
“Probably the largest concussion was last year and that was again footy. It was just an accident, putting your head in the wrong spot.”
Having grown up playing footy with the boys since under-12s, Tucker has a broad understanding of how to approach a contest safely.
But that is only 50 per cent of the equation.
Tucker is convinced that many players new to women’s footy are still yet to learn how to protect themselves and each other.
“I think the development of the women’s league now, because it’s so new, you’ve got a lot of newcomers coming in and they don’t know the correct techniques to tackle and also to take a tackle,” she said.
“That’s what you are finding a lot in this league, that players with incorrect techniques are getting in a bit of strife.”
The next part of the EMI study — which is part of a $696,000-plus three-year inquiry funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council — is to scan 50 young adults who have never suffered a concussion.
What that will do is allow experts to compare scans and find the differences between trauma and non-trauma brains.
“We’d like to log that over time and see if those effects are permanent or are they temporary? How do they change? Does it make a difference? I think that will be really interesting in the future,” Smith said.
“We need males and females of playing age (18-28) to volunteer to have a similar scan.
“It only takes 30-40 minutes. Without that cohort of non-playing young adults, the results we get from football players will be less meaningful.”
Pearce said it was important that answers were found by this generation and not left to the next.
“Concussion is an issue for the community, not just elite sports, and as such we need to continue to research for the answers to ensure our children are not asking the same questions we are today,” he said.
“The St Mary’s Football Club, and in particular the players, have been very supportive of this study and have given their time to ensure we are able to undertake this research.
“We are hopeful the community will provide similar support to enable the control study to be completed to provide important research data for this project.”