Last month I had the opportunity to speak at the Royal Society of Medicine about concussion in elite sport. What struck me most during the discussion afterwards was something that has increasingly concerned me in clinical practice: protocols designed to improve care may, paradoxically, be undermining clinical reasoning.

This is not a criticism of the intent behind concussion protocols. Their introduction was both necessary and overdue. But their implementation has had unintended consequences that deserve reflection.

A brief history of good intentions

Across UK sport, concussion protocols emerged largely in the 2010s in response to growing recognition of head injury risks. The Rugby Football Union introduced structured return-to-play pathways and head injury assessments in elite rugby earlier than most sports. The England and Wales Cricket Board adopted formal concussion management guidance in the mid-2010s and later introduced concussion substitutions following international regulation changes. The Football Association followed with formal concussion guidelines shortly afterwards.

Each governing body introduced graduated return-to-play pathways, typically involving staged progression over a minimum number of days before an athlete could return to competition. These frameworks were created to address a genuine problem: historically, athletes returned to play too quickly, often under pressure from competitive environments.

And while these protocols created structure, safety, and accountability, they also created something else.

When timelines become the diagnosis

Today, it is not uncommon to hear clinicians, coaches, and even athletes speak about “being on stage 3 of the concussion protocol”.

The timeline becomes the treatment.

The implication is that concussion behaves like a fracture: a defined injury with a predictable biological healing timeline. But concussion is not a fracture. In fact, “concussion” is itself a problematic term. The clinical term describes the outcome of a rapid head acceleration rather than the specific functional disturbance that results.

The clinical question should not simply be: Has the protocol timeline elapsed?

The question should be: What functions have been disrupted by this rapid head acceleration, and have they recovered?

That requires clinical reasoning, not simply protocol adherence.

The misuse of tools

One example of this shift toward protocol-driven care is the ongoing misuse of assessment tools.

The Sport Concussion Assessment Tool 6 (SCAT6) is a valuable instrument in the initial assessment of suspected concussion. It provides structured evaluation of symptoms, cognition, balance, and neurological signs.

But it was never intended to be used indefinitely. In fact, its diagnostic utility declines significantly after the first 48–72 hours.

Yet in our clinic at the Institute of Sport Exercise and Health, we still routinely see professional athletes who have had SCAT6 assessments repeated throughout their  “concussion protocol”. At that stage, the tool adds little. What is required instead is clinical evaluation of the systems affected by the rapid head acceleration .

The tool designed to fix this problem

The irony is that the most recent international consensus attempted to address precisely this issue.

The introduction of the Sport Concussion Office Assessment Tool 6 (SCOAT6) was intended to support clinicians in structured post-acute evaluation. Unlike the SCAT6, the SCOAT6 is designed for use in the clinical environment and emphasises assessment of domains such as:

• Vestibular-ocular function
• cervical spine involvement
• cognitive function
• autonomic regulation
• mental health disturbance

In other words, it supports clinical reasoning about which systems have been functionally affected.

Yet in practice, its dissemination and implementation have been limited. Many clinicians remain far more familiar with the SCAT6, despite it being the wrong tool for the later stages of recovery.

Confusion across sports

Adding further complexity is the fact that concussion protocols differ between sports. Elite rugby, cricket, and football all have slightly different return-to-play timelines. For athletes, clinicians, and support staff working across sports, these inconsistencies can be confusing.

More importantly, they reinforce the idea that recovery is governed by a predetermined number of days, rather than by individual clinical recovery.

The risk of protocol medicine

Protocols are valuable. They protect athletes from premature return and provide clear guidance in high-pressure environments.

But protocols should support clinical reasoning, not replace it.

If clinicians begin to rely on timelines instead of functional assessment, we risk replacing one problem with another. Instead of athletes returning too early, we risk athletes progressing through pathways without truly understanding what has recovered, and what has not. Concussion care should not be about counting days. It should be about identifying which neurological systems were disrupted by rapid head acceleration and determining when they have recovered. That requires skill, assessment, and judgement. In other words, it requires clinicians.

A call for better clinical thinking

If concussion protocols achieved one thing, it was to ensure that head injuries are taken seriously and that was a vital step forward. The next step must be ensuring that protocols remain tools for clinicians, not substitutes for them. Better dissemination of tools such as the SCOAT6, greater emphasis on domain-specific assessment, and continued education in concussion pathophysiology are essential.

Otherwise, the well-intentioned structures designed to improve care may inadvertently do the opposite.

After a concussion, many people struggle to describe how they feel.
They’re not always in pain.
They’re not always dizzy.
They’re not always confused.

But they often feel… “off”.

Discombobulated.
Out of sync.
Not quite themselves.

This “discombobulated state” is one of the most common—but least clearly defined—experiences following concussion. And it may actually hold the key to understanding why most people recover quickly, while a smaller proportion go on to develop persisting symptoms.

A Brain That’s Temporarily Out of Sync

The brain is not a single processor—it’s a distributed network of interacting systems. After concussion, many of these networks appear to fall temporarily out of phase.

This includes:

Processing Speed Delays

The brain’s ability to integrate information slows. Tasks that once felt automatic now require effort. This can feel like fogginess, slowness, or mental fatigue.

Visual–Vestibular–Cervical Mismatches

The visual system, inner ear, and neck proprioceptors normally provide tightly integrated and predictable information about where you are in space. After concussion, these signals can become misaligned, leading to:

• Dizziness
• Motion sensitivity
• Visual discomfort
• Disorientation
• Poor spatial confidence

3. Oculomotor Dysfunctions

Eye movements—saccades, smooth pursuit, vergence—can lose precision and timing. This can contribute to:

• Headaches
• Visual fatigue
• More dizziness!
• Reading difficulties
• Concentration problems
• A sense that the world feels “wrong”

Altered Cervical Muscle Control

Concussion (a rapid head acceleration event) frequently co-occurs with neck injury. Changes in cervical muscle activation, joint position sense, and reflexes can amplify dizziness, headaches, and postural instability.

Postural and Movement Compensations

When the brain feels unreliable, the body compensates. People become stiff, cautious, guarded. This increases energy expenditure and fatigue.

The Overlay of Anxiety and Poor Sleep

Uncertainty about symptoms, fear of worsening (every week there are headlines about head impacts and neurodegenerative diseases), disrupted routines, and neurochemical changes all increase vulnerability to anxiety and sleep disturbance—both of which further destabilise brain networks.

Why This Distinction Matters

Up to 70% of people recover from concussion within a few weeks.

But around 30% develop persisting symptoms.

Here’s where we need to be careful.

If we fail to differentiate between:

• A temporary discombobulated state, and
• Additional traits, vulnerabilities, or co-existing injuries

…we risk treating everyone as though they have a moderate brain injury.

In reality, persistent symptoms are often influenced by:

• Pre-existing migraine or headache disorders
• Anxiety or depression
• Vestibular vulnerabilities
• Cervical injury
• Sleep disorders
• Autonomic dysregulation
• Visual or oculomotor inefficiencies
• Pain sensitisation
• Fear-avoidance behaviours and rapid deconditioning

These factors may prolong the discombobulated state—or prevent it from resolving.

The Future: From Labels to Networks

Rather than thinking in terms of single symptoms—dizziness, headache, fatigue—we should be thinking in terms of network stability.

Concussion disrupts timing, coordination, and integration. That’s why we promote early cervico-vestibular, visual and physical rehabilitation to force the brain to adapt to this discombobulated state.

Early recovery is not just about rest.
It’s about re-synchronisation.

Associate Professor James McLoughlin

Associate Professor James McLoughlin is Chief Academic Officer at Your Brain Health and Director of Advanced Neuro Rehab.

Standing at the top of the skeleton run at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the cold was aggressive. It was -27 °C. Cold enough that icicles had formed in my beard as I watched athletes prepare to hurl themselves head-first down an ice chute at motorway speeds – a perfectly normal way to spend a Tuesday morning, obviously.

PyeongChang was my 4th Olympic Games, but my first as Chief Medical Officer for Team GB. You might think three decades in Sports and Exercise Medicine would dull your curiosity, but if anything, experience just refines the questions. As I looked down the run that morning, two things occupied my mind.

First: would Lizzy Yarnold retain her Olympic gold? (Spoiler: She did, magnificently).

Second, and the one that has nagged at me far longer: what truly causes the symptoms skeleton athletes call “Skelly Head” (or “Sled Head” to our North American colleagues)?

The first question was answered on the podium. The second remains one of the more interesting, unresolved puzzles in our field.

A career defined by head injuries

Skelly Head has always fascinated me, and not by accident. My academic background is in concussion. I’ve spent over thirty years as Chief Medical Officer for GB Boxing; a sport where rapid, precise symptom recognition and knowing the difference between structural injury and functional disturbance is critical.

Here is the challenge: Skeleton athletes often present with symptoms that look, on the surface, suspiciously like concussion; headache, dizziness, disorientation, visual disturbance, neck discomfort.

Yet, in most cases, they haven’t hit their head. There is no big impact, no rotational acceleration, and no consistent post-traumatic cognitive profile.

My position is clear: Skelly Head is not concussion, despite the superficial similarities. Conflating the two is like treating a migraine with a neck brace, it risks misunderstanding both conditions.

When the physics hits the physiology

Skeleton is one of those brilliant sports that captures global attention for two weeks every four years, then largely vanishes from view.

But the physiological demands don’t disappear when the TV cameras leave. These athletes are repeatedly exposed to one of the most extreme mechanical environments in sport. Over multiple Olympic cycles, I’ve seen a recognisable pattern emerge: athletes reporting dizziness, visual strain, and stiff necks following runs. Sometimes transient, sometimes cumulative, and often without any identifiable “crash.”

So, what is happening?

It has become increasingly clear that the culprit is repeated, high-frequency vibration transmitted through the sled, the ice, the helmet and right into the cervical spine.

We need to stop viewing this vibration as just an incidental nuisance of the sport. It is an active sensory stressor. It occurs within specific frequency ranges known to bother vestibular organs (our balance system) and the sensors in our neck responsible for spatial orientation.

The “Snow Globe” Effect: A Mechanistic Framework

Rather than a single pathology, I believe Skelly Head is best understood as a transient disturbance of how the brain integrates multiple senses under load.

1. The Vestibular Shake-Up Imagine your inner ear getting shaken like a snow globe. Repeated vibration seems to transiently scramble vestibular signalling-specifically the inputs that sense linear acceleration and head position. The result is subtle reductions in reflex stability and a “visual–vestibular mismatch.” The eyes and ears are telling the brain different things. Crucially, this happens without permanent damage, which explains why standard vestibular tests usually come back looking normal.
2. The Cervical Response The neck is not a passive passenger. Vibration transmitted through the sled–helmet interface modifies signals from the neck to the brain. The body responds with protective stiffness-increasing muscle tone. This stiffness is both adaptive (trying to stabilise the head) and contributory to the problem, leading to secondary headaches and discomfort.
3. Central Processing Overload At a central level, the poor brain has to reconcile noisy signals from the ears, altered input from a stiff neck, and heavily relied-upon visual information, all while moving at 80mph. It’s a massive increase in processing demand.

Symptoms arise not because tissue is broken, but because the integration system becomes inefficient under extreme, repeated load.

Why this matters (beyond the ice track)

Why fuss over a niche condition in a niche sport? Because precision in diagnosis is everything.

Misclassifying Skelly Head as concussion is unhelpful. It risks inappropriate management, unnecessary restriction, and misplaced anxiety about brain injury, while failing to address the true underlying mechanisms.

Athletes deserve explanations grounded in physiology, not just convenient labels. Clinicians need frameworks that recognise functional, load-dependent disturbances rather than forcing symptoms into diagnostic categories that don’t quite fit.

Skelly Head isn’t mystical. It is a predictable physiological response to high-frequency vibration acting on tightly coupled body systems. Standing in that -27 °C freezer in PyeongChang, it was clear to me that getting this right mattered.

In the work we do at the clinic today-applying that same rigorous curiosity to all head symptoms, whether from an Olympic sled or a fall at home, it matters even more.

Your Brain Health (YBH) has partnered with the OrthTeam Centre in Manchester, expanding access to data-driven concussion care for athletes and sports teams across the North of England – and further strengthening the UK’s national concussion care infrastructure at the forefront of digital brain health innovation.

Through the partnership, the OrthTeam Centre’s dedicated Concussion Clinic will now use ScreenIT, YBH’s digital brain health platform, to record and monitor players’ recovery through every stage of the concussion pathway. ScreenIT connects clinicians, clubs and schools through a single digital platform, creating living brain health records that make recovery measurable, trackable, and transparent – supporting safer, data-driven return-to-play decisions.

This partnership gives athletes across the North of England access to connected, evidence-based concussion care, aligning with efforts to create a consistent approach to brain health nationwide. Combining clinical expertise with real-world data helps enhance safety, recovery, and long-term brain health outcomes.

A North–South Alliance for Concussion Care

The collaboration builds on YBH’s existing partnership with Professor Mike Loosemore and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health (ISEH) in London – creating a north–south alliance that unites world-class clinical expertise and cutting-edge digital tools to strengthen the UK’s concussion care infrastructure.

At the heart of this alliance is a shared vision: to build a national network of “super-centres” for brain health in sport, where players can access the most advanced assessment, treatment, and monitoring – supported by a single, connected digital system.

The OrthTeam Centre’s Concussion Clinic, part of the wider Sport and Exercise Medicine Clinics network, is led by some of the UK’s most respected Sport and Exercise Medicine consultants, including Dr John Rogers, Dr Rebecca Robinson, Dr David White, Dr Jim Kerss, and Dr Bevin McCartan. It represents one of the largest multidisciplinary groups in UK sport and exercise medicine, dedicated to improving safety, recovery, and long-term brain health outcomes for athletes of all ages and abilities.

Together, YBH and the OrthTeam Centre are setting new standards for concussion management – integrating evidence-based clinical practice, connected digital infrastructure, and national collaboration to improve player welfare and long-term brain health outcomes.

Rachael Dawe, SEM Strategy Consultant at OrthTeam Centre, said: “I’m delighted by this partnership, which strengthens how concussion care is connected and delivered. By combining clinical expertise with digital innovation, we’re creating a more consistent, informed approach that supports both clinicians, patients and athletes throughout recovery.”

Dr Rebecca Robinson, Consultant in Sport and Exercise Medicine at OrthTeam Centre, said: “Your Brain Health is an asset for concussion recovery, which adds precision to the clinical approach and a digital interface at the forefront of concussion technology. Working within a multidisciplinary system with YBH and using Screen IT will enable us as clinicians to bring better recovery services to all our patients – adults and young people – experiencing concussion, and enhance how we collaborate with colleagues nationally to drive research in this important area.”

Professor Mike Loosemore MBE, Consultant in Sport and Exercise Medicine, Institute of Sport & Exercise Health (ISEH), said: “ScreenIT has transformed how we manage athletes with concussion. Its enabled seamless digital communication between clubs and the concussion clinic at ISEH, ensuring that every clinician involved has real-time access to accurate, connected data. This has improved the quality of care, enhanced collaboration, and allowed us to monitor and track recovery safely and effectively.”

David Bartlett, Chief Operating Officer at Your Brain Health, said: “Through ScreenIT, we’re building a world-leading concussion care infrastructure across the UK. This partnership with OrthTeam brings world-class clinical expertise to the North West and ensures that every player can access the best possible care. And this isn’t just for elite athletes – clubs and schools can run free baseline brain screens with ScreenIT to build a clearer picture of brain health and support safer, stronger recoveries and better-informed return-to-play decisions.”

By David Bartlett, Physiotherapist at Welsh Fire

When Jordan Cox sprinted toward the boundary and plucked a soaring ball to dismiss Steve Smith in the Hundred this summer, the crowd saw a moment of pure athletic brilliance.
Those of us working at the intersection of brain health and performance saw something more: a live demonstration of world-class gaze stability.

The Invisible Work Behind the Catch

Tracking a cricket ball that is descending at over 100 km/h while your own body is accelerating is a neuromechanical challenge of the highest order. As Cox turned and ran back, his cervical spine moved from deep extension and left rotation to a neutral posture, all while the visual backdrop shifted abruptly from the uniform blue of the sky to the high-contrast chaos of a packed grandstand.

For the ball to remain sharply focused on his fovea, Cox’s vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), cervico-ocular reflex (COR) and smooth pursuit eye tracking functions all had to perform flawlessly. These oculomotor functions integrate information from semicircular canals of the inner ear, neck muscle spindles, and joints to control extra-ocular muscles, driving equal-and-opposite eye movements within roughly ten milliseconds of head motion. Any deficit in gaze stability gain, even mild, would have produced compensatory corrective saccades, causing the ball to blur or “jump” in his visual field. In that scenario, the catch simply doesn’t happen.

Implications for Performance

This is where what we know from concussion management and performance science needs to converge. We know from both clinical research and daily practice that even subtle vestibular, cervical and oculomotor impairments after head trauma degrades oculomotor functions and dynamic visual acuity. Cervico-vestibular dysfunction, common after rapid head acceleration injuries, together with physiological injury to brain and brainstem pathways, adds another layer, as proprioceptive input from the neck is essential for accurate gaze control.

Yet traditional return-to-play assessments often stop at symptom checklists or static balance tests. Cox’s catch is a compelling reminder that sport demands far more. If an athlete cannot maintain visual clarity while sprinting, rotating, and reacting to a shifting background, they are not truly match-ready.

Training and Screening the Invisible System

The good news is that gaze stability can be trained and measured. Dynamic visual-acuity tests, head-impulse assessments, oculomotor tests and progressive vestibular rehabilitation (the classic X1 and X2 drills, for example) and sports specific gaze stability exercises provide both objective metrics and effective interventions. Embedding these in pre-season screening and post-concussion protocols should now be as routine as hamstring strength testing.

A Broader Lesson

What fans celebrated as a spectacular dismissal was, at its core, a triumph of incredible neuro-ocular-vestibular-cervical integration. For performance and medical teams, it highlights a simple but critical truth: protecting and optimising the brain–eye–neck axis is not a niche clinical concern, it is a competitive necessity.

Elite catches are born not only of athletic talent but of a nervous system tuned to keep a stable gaze on moving targets, while the body moves at speed. In professional sport, that is as worthy of training and safeguarding as any other physical skill.

The recent Herald Sun article¹, based on a new Swinburne University study using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)², highlights what many clinicians have long recognised: concussion recovery is not as simple as counting down the days.

In sport, return-to-play (RTP) rules are often based on arbitrary timelines; 12 days in elite AFL, 21 days in community levels, rather than an accurate picture of brain recovery. This study found that while athletes reported feeling symptom-free after about 12 days, measures of cortical inhibition (via TMS) were still abnormal for up to 26 days.

Every day in Australia, we hear that an athlete is sidelined due to “concussion protocols”, rather than what is really happening; the athlete is recovering from a concussion injury. Concussion is a rapid head acceleration injury with neurophysiological, musculoskeletal, and psychological consequences. Just like a hamstring or shoulder injury, recovery requires an individualised, multimodal assessment, not an arbitrary timeline. You don’t hear of players out with “hamstring protocols”, they are recovering from a hamstring injury. And running without pain symptoms certainly does not mean you have fully recovered!

This reinforces what we see clinically every week: symptom resolution does not necessarily mean full recovery.

Why This Matters

Every athlete deserves recovery care that is:

• Individualised – no two concussions recover the same way
• Comprehensive – covering brain, body, and psychological health
• Transparent – so players, families, and clinicians can track progress together

This is one of the reasons we built ScreenIT, software that integrates all these clinical measures, streamlining care for the individual while also creating robust, longitudinal datasets to advance concussion research.

References

1. Clarke, B. (2025, August 17). When do you recover from a concussion? Shock new findings. Herald Sun. https://www.heraldsun.com.au/health/mental-health/concussion-recovery-periods-may-be-too-short-new-brain-study-suggests/news-story/73aa4cf85aa55e875b42c3497f96651b
2. Pearce, A. J., Middleton, K., & Clarke, A. (2025). Time-course responses following sports-related concussion: a multi-modality study. The Physician and Sportsmedicine, 00913847.2025.2541579, 1–9.
3. Fong, D. H. C., Cohen, A., Boughton, P., Raftos, P., Herrera, J. E., Simon, N. G., & Putrino, D. (2020). Steady-state visual-evoked potentials as a biomarker for concussion: A pilot study. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14, 171.

Your Brain Health’s flagship digital platform, ScreenIT, has been awarded top honours in the Technology Platform category at the 2025 South Australian iAwards, held at KPMG Adelaide on 1 July.

Hosted as part of the 32nd annual AIIA iAwards, the event celebrated innovation excellence across the state. South Australia’s Assistant Minister for Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Economy, Michael Brown MP, addressed attendees, highlighting the transformative potential of AI for economic growth and the importance of industry collaboration in managing emerging technologies responsibly.

Developed in close partnership with MPF, ScreenIT is redefining how clinicians and elite sports organisations manage brain health. With its intuitive interface and integrated SCAT6/SCOAT6 tools, the platform is already empowering teams to make faster, smarter decisions around concussion and cognitive recovery.

“This award recognises the power of purpose-built technology to improve health outcomes and streamline clinical workflows,” said Greg Rosenbauer, CEO of Your Brain Health. “We’re thrilled to see ScreenIT acknowledged for its impact, and excited for what’s ahead.”

The win qualifies ScreenIT for the national iAwards, to be held in August.

Learn more about ScreenIT →

In 2022, Your Brain Health (YBH) was in its embryonic stages as an organisation. At that time, we held clear ambitions to promote a multimodal, community‑focused approach to brain health. By combining clinical experience, domain expertise, and emerging technologies, our goal was to enable better, evidence‑informed care.

We recognised an urgent need for integrated brain‑health solutions across diverse settings—concussion, mental health, ageing, and neurorehabilitation. This vision became the foundation for developing digital tools and clinical pathways that empower both healthcare professionals and the people they serve.

YBH was born from the belief that optimal outcomes are achieved when brain health is assessed and managed using a collaborative, multidisciplinary, and data‑driven model. From this initial vision, our future direction began to take shape.

Driven by this unmet need and our clinical insights, we developed ScreenIT software to address these challenges. ScreenIT is designed to:

Easily capture previously fragmented data from validated questionnaires and objective multimodal outcome measures, alongside emerging assessment technologies. A selection of trusted tools allowing for clinician choice and autonomy to suit their contextual needs.

Automate comprehensive reports within seconds, saving administrative time.

Track measures longitudinally with intuitive timeline graphs.

Support clinics, clubs, and organisations through flexible permission structures for clinical and administrative staff, enhancing multidisciplinary collaboration.

Securely store a scalable, real‑world longitudinal database that can power future research and AI/machine‑learning insights.

The ISEH Concussion Clinic Joins the Your Brain Health Network

Located on Tottenham Court Road, the Concussion Clinic at the Institute of Sport and Exercise Health (ISEH), led by Prof. Loosemore, has officially joined the growing Your Brain Health network. This international network already includes Prof. Jon Patricios’s clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa. Both Loosemore and Patricios were co-authors of the most recent Concussion in Sport Group Consensus Statement and played instrumental roles in the development of the groundbreaking SCOAT6 (Sports Concussion Office Assessment Tool 6). Their shared expertise ensures that patients have access to care informed by the latest global standards.

The ISEH Concussion Clinic is one of the leading centres in the country for concussion diagnosis and management, offering pioneering technology and treatments that set it apart. What makes this clinic exceptional is its unique ability to treat children as well as adults with concussions—a vital service. From young athletes to professionals recovering from injuries, the clinic combines advanced diagnostic tools with personalized care plans to ensure optimal recovery.

Prof. Loosemore’s expertise in the pathophysiology of brain injuries, backed by decades of research, means patients receive care rooted in science and tailored to their individual needs. Whether it’s the result of a sports injury, an accident, or a fall, this clinic is redefining what’s possible when it comes to managing concussions.

Meet Professor Mike Loosemore MBE

If you’re wondering what makes Prof. Loosemore such a trailblazer in his field, here’s the lowdown:

Areas of Expertise: Diagnosis and treatment of concussion, musculoskeletal injuries, and sports injuries; exercise as a tool for disease prevention and management.

NHS Base: University College London Hospitals.

Private Practice: ISEH and The Portland Hospital.

Prof. Loosemore’s groundbreaking work has earned him an MBE for services to Sports Medicine, alongside numerous awards like the Sir Robert Atkins Award and the David Hemery Award. With a PhD in the Pathophysiology of Boxing Injuries, he’s at the forefront of concussion research and has dedicated his career to improving care for athletes, children, and anyone dealing with injury.

Beyond the clinic, Prof. Loosemore’s influence extends globally. He’s traveled with national squads to the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and World Championships, using his expertise to help athletes perform—and recover—at their best.

Your Brain Health today launches a global campaign calling on all sports clubs, schools and other sporting organisations to appoint a Concussion Officer responsible for overseeing head injury protocols.

The initiative, which already has the backing of sports stars, coaches, medics, charities, concussion campaigners and grassroots organisations, including Datchworth RFC, calls on governing bodies to embrace an open conversation about concussion and facilitate the push for increased safeguards.

Become a Concussion Officer Today

Similar in principle to a club Fire Warden or Safeguarding Officer, which have been widely adopted by sports clubs and associations in recent years, a concussion officer would be nominated by each organisation and take responsibility for ensuring protocols and best practice are followed.

Speaking about the initiative, Your Brain Health (YBH) Chief Operating Officer and current Welsh Fire Lead Physiotherapist David Bartlett, said:

‘Sport is an incredible force for good—it builds physical fitness, mental resilience, and lifelong friendships. But to keep sport safe and accessible for everyone, we need to take concussions seriously. Appointing a Concussion Officer ensures that when head injuries happen, they’re managed properly, and allows participants to recover fully and return to enjoying the sports they love.’

While the sports field would seem the most likely place for a child to sustain a concussion, or mild traumatic brain injury as it is also referred, school playgrounds see an estimated 27,000 diagnosed cases in Australia alone each year.

‘Schools have a duty of care to ensure these injuries are managed appropriately. Without clear protocols, concussions can be missed, leading to long-term health consequences. A Concussion Officer ensures that no child falls through the cracks and that brain health is treated with the seriousness it deserves.’

YBH, with the backing of Concussed Media and other concussion awareness groups, believe the campaign will help clubs and sports organisations achieve:

• Better protection for clubs / schools
• Better health outcomes
• Better performance
• Peace of mind of players / parents
• Increase participation
• Improve reputation of organisation

The RFU was criticised for attempting to reduce the tackle height in the amateur game in 2023, but former Datchworth First XV captain Stu Young believes the reluctance of referees to penalise head high tackles, which have always been illegal under the game’s laws, is the biggest stumbling block to progress.

‘Massive hits to the head are either just given as a penalty or 10 minutes in the sin bin and then they come back on,’ Young said. ‘It’s not really achieving what I assume the RFU want to do which is to lower the height of tackles and therefore lower the amount of head knocks.

‘If the referees were a bit more on it (prepared to give red cards) that might have more of an impact than just saying ‘we’re going to lower the contact area from shoulder height to sternum’.’

Another Datchworth stalwart, Warren Sullivan, who coaches the junior section and is current Chairman, is concerned the mounting threat of legal action has caused some parents to become overcautious. He wants a renewed focus on coaching the tackle, where most concussions occur.

‘People have got scared,’ Sullivan said. ‘they’re more or less throwing the baby out of the bathwater.  A lot of parents don’t want their kids to play rugby anymore but I think a lot of it’s unfounded.

‘We need to improve tackle technique across the game. It doesn’t help seeing the professionals tackling so upright.’