Capitalizing on Sports Concussions: How Marketing of Protective Products Increases Athletes’ Injury Risk

Sports concussions, more accurately called traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) have gotten a lot of attention over the past decade as professional athletes succumb to the aftermath of years of brutal collisions. Media exposure coupled with the emergence of disturbing research on TBIs has led many parents to question the safety of certain sports for their children. Schools and sports leagues have taken measures to mitigate potential brain trauma, partly to placate parents and protect aspiring young players from injury, and partly to reduce their own liability.

In a supply and demand economy, increased demand for anything is bound to draw opportunists from the shadows, and that is certainly true in the case of TBIs. Catering to the fears of parents for their children’s safety and the even greater fears of liability lawsuits on the part of schools and sports leagues, manufacturers of everything from nutritional supplements to helmets have climbed on the TBI bandwagon, touting their “protective” products with little or no evidence of their efficacy.

Nevertheless, sports programs have ponied up millions of dollars to invest in the latest protective gear, making TBIs a cash cow for manufacturers.

If you know anything about marketing, you are aware that a good marketing campaign highlights the potential advantages of a product while downplaying or completely suppressing its shortcomings. In the case of TBI protection, manufacturers have resorted to pseudomedicine to cash in on the fears and concerns surrounding athletic TBIs.

Some prime examples of deceptive marketing based on pseudomedicine include:

A chocolate-flavored sports drink whose ingredients supposedly speed concussion recovery. Not surprisingly, the premise for the manufacturers’ claims was based on an industry-funded unpublished study. Yet scores of parents and school districts geared up to spend thousands of dollars on the product before the study was discredited as completely bogus.

Helmets and mouthpieces for soccer, football and other sports. Even though they have been proven by multiple studies to be ineffective in preventing TBIs, helmet and mouthpiece manufacturers were quick to jump on the TBI bandwagon and create or enhance products that are not only cumbersome to wear, but costly and useless.

A jugular compression device to reduce brain trauma. This device may be the most far-fetched of all. The product is a plastic collar, called a Q-Collar (previously marketed at NeuroShield), that compresses the athlete’s jugular veins, with the goal of increasing cranial blood volume. The theory, purportedly based on woodpeckers, is that an inflated skull leaves less room for the brain to rattle around, in effect creating a protective cushion. Research referenced for purposes of marketing the device is shoddy at best, and has been completely debunked. Nevertheless, the device is still being sold and used by athletes.

TBI prevention products are about as effective as hiding under a desk to protect yourself from nuclear fallout – it may make you feel safer, but it won’t do you any good when the bomb drops.

Not only are protective sports products useless in preventing TBIs, but they can actually increase the overall injury risk in athletes:

• Protective gear gives the athlete a false sense of confidence, resulting in behavior changes like using more dangerous or aggressive playing strategies, increasing injury risk.
• When faced with imminent contact, athletes instinctively and reflexively put the protected body part first. In the case of helmets and collars, the head is protected, so the athlete is more likely to go head-first into a collision, increasing the risk of brain trauma.
• Coaches may underestimate the risk of injury to athletes who wear protective gear, overlooking concussion symptoms and placing athletes in harms way.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but the best prevention strategies have nothing to do with protective sports gear.

To reduce the risk of TBIs,

• Keep your body in peak physical condition through strength training, cardio and range of motion exercises.
• Maintain optimal hydrations levels before, during and after physical exertion.
• Eat a nutrient-dense diet to keep your body’s systems working at their peak.
• Do an adequate warm-up before engaging in play.
• Use proper technique.
• Never take unnecessary risks.
• Never play through pain.
• Get adequate sleep.
• Give your body ample time to recover between games and training sessions.

After a collision or other traumatic episode, do a self-assessment for signs and symptoms of concussion, and seek medical treatment immediately if you suspect a TBI. Under no circumstances should you return to play if you think you may have a brain injury.

Concussion symptoms include:

• headache
• impaired cognition
• dizziness
• trouble concentrating
• fatigue
• nausea
• vomiting
• impaired balance
• irritability
• disrupted sleep patterns
• extreme sensitivity to noise or light
• anxiety and/or depression