It’s not OK to wear head knock as badge of honour
One of the biggest obstacles health authorities face in trying to persuade Australian sports to expand their concussion protocols is breaking through the macho code of silence around head injuries.
For generations, Australian athletes have prided themselves in playing through pain, including head knocks, in the pursuit of victory.
Long regarded as a badge of honour, competitors at all levels have been lauded as heroes for hiding their wounds and continuing to play.
The notion of missing out because they feel dizzy or faint, or have broken their jaw or nose, is almost portrayed as a weakness, so few competitors ever own up.
Which is why health experts know that the official numbers around concussions are much lower than they really are, and why the government is urgently calling for the creation of a National Sports Injury Database that includes a buy-in from major professional sports.
“We know for a fact that in the early 2000s, in some football codes at the professional level, of those who were diagnosed with concussion, more than 50 per cent went back on the same day,” the Australian Institute of Sport chief medical officer Dr David Hughes said.
“But the whole of society has
AIS chief medical officer
been educated. I think that football codes have been educated, that that’s absolutely not OK. I think the media understands that that’s not OK and holds people to account.
“I think parents and athletes are much more aware that you do have to take care of yourself, you do have to be concerned about concussions.”
According to the report from last year’s Senate inquiry into concussion in sports, there were 2305 recorded cases of patients spending time in hospital due to concussion caused by sports. Around a third of those occurred during football matches.
However, officials believe the real numbers are much higher and the Senate committee heard from a number of professionals and amateurs who confirmed that covering up injuries was part of the sporting culture.
The Australian Sports Commission said the under-reporting of concussions ranged from 17 per cent to 82 per cent across different sports.
A 2002 survey of Australian footballers found that 9 per cent of AFL and 2 per cent of AFLW respondents experienced a concussion they did not report.
And 9 per cent of AFL and 4 per cent of AFLW respondents continued to play or train after experiencing a concussion without receiving medical attention.
In a 2020 NRL survey, 17 per cent of surveyed players declined to report a likely concussion during the 2018 and 2019 seasons, despite 85 per cent having received concussion education over the previous two seasons.
One of the main reasons provided was that players didn’t want to miss a match or “let down” their coaches and teammates but Hughes said those attitudes needed to change.
“It’s a bit of a balancing act because if you just have some blanket-long period of time and you said ‘everybody’s going to be out for six weeks’ or something like that, what you’re going to do is drive concussion underground,” Dr Hughes said.
“That would be the worst outcome because people are not getting the medical care that they might like because no one’s going to admit to having any symptoms.”