Water polo modified Nathan Allen’s lifestyle for the higher. The Palatine High School junior wasn’t an awful lot of an athlete when he turned younger. However, he determined a place in a sport that, to the spectator, seems like a move between a water ballet and a mugging. Their physicality and competitiveness transformed him, and he plans to sign up for the Marine Corps after high school.
It has been an excellent enjoy; keep for one trouble: He continues getting hit in the head. Allen, an 18-yr-antique goalie, had one identified concussion his first year and suffered two other extensive blows. Since then, he has taken numerous other painful shots. “If the ball ricochets off the returned of the (goalpost), it may hit me within the lower back of the top,” he stated. “That’s the primary hassle.”
Water polo is increasingly famous in Illinois, which fields higher faculty groups than any nation other than California. As with many different sports activities, even though athletes, coaches, mothers, and fathers are increasingly cautious of head injuries induced by the ball, they speak to other gamers.
James Hicks, director of the University of California at Irvine’s Center for Exercise Medicine and Sports Sciences, has observed that just over a third of water polo gamers say they’ve suffered a concussion for the duration of their careers. For goalies, it’s close to half of that.
In another study posted just this month, Hicks used sensors inner players’ caps to locate that they mechanically go through head impacts throughout games and practices. Players in the middle positions, who batter every different looking to get ownership of the ball, are regarded as the most vulnerable.
Hicks stated he couldn’t compare water polo’s concussion chance with higher known sports activities because he has no data on the rate — how many injuries arise consistent with 1,000 games or practices. Nor can he say how the head effects he measured, none of which resulted in an identified concussion, affected the athlete’s mind features. But he said he’s doing extra studies into how the brain works the following head effect, hoping to one day expand an early caution machine to permit coaches to sit gamers before extreme issues start.
“Our aim is not to prevent the sport,” he said. “I’m a massive fan of water polo. I assume it’s a high-quality game. We’re simply looking out what’s happening in the game, the dangers, and how we manipulate those risks.” Though water polo has constantly been acknowledged for its roughness — its most well-known game, played between the Soviet Union and Hungary at the 1956 Olympics, is called the “Blood inside the Water” in shape — an ongoing lawsuit claims that precautions have been insufficient.
The mother of a teenage player says her daughter received a concussion while gambling goalie all through a 2014 match; it is best to be despatched and returned for greater punishment. The youngster quickly confirmed signs and symptoms of the submit-concussion syndrome, in line with the lawsuit. Her symptoms, which included dizziness, nausea, and complications, have been so terrible that she had to stay out of school to relax for 12 months, the lawsuit says.
The case continues to be litigated. The woman’s mom claims USA Water Polo, the sport’s governing body, had no concussion management coverage for teen gamers, notwithstanding having one for the countrywide crew. USA Water Polo declined to remark. However, its website now includes a “concussion action plan” that advises coaches to remove athletes from play until they are cleared by a fitness care expert.
