Queen’s University PhD candidate working to reduce football concussions

The dangers posed by concussions are well known, and sometimes tragically documented, as was the case with 17-year-old rugby player Rowan Stringer.

She died in 2013 from a concussion, and a law to make players safer now bears her name in Ontario.

Fifteen-year-old Cameron Wright, a middle linebacker for his junior football team at Frontenac Secondary School in Kingston, says he knows first-hand what a concussion feels like. He suffered his concussion playing hockey and it’s an experience he says he doesn’t want to repeat.

According to the Canadian government, 64 per cent of children and youth who end up in emergency rooms are there due to sports-related injuries, and 39 per cent of those are head injuries or concussions.

That’s one of the reasons why both the public and Catholic school boards welcome working with Queen’s PhD candidate Allen Champagne.

His study, called the NeuroProtection Project, is aimed at reducing concussions and head injuries in football players.

WATCH: Queen’s University PhD candidate working to reduce concussions in football

1:56 Queen’s University PhD candidate working to reduce concussions in football

Champagne worked with the Limestone District Grenadiers football club over the summer as well as players from the Thousand Islands Minor Football League, teaching the players and coaches how to minimize impact through better playing and safety techniques. Champagne said the project’s work with those players reduced head impacts by 30 per cent.

When he first began the project, Champagne said it was run without funding, except for by donations and personal funds.

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Now the Limestone District School Board has partnered with Champagne, offering funding by paying for each player who participates in his project. Champagne is also working on getting a grant for the study that might help propel NeuroProtection past Kingston’s borders.

For now he’s focusing on teams like the Frontenac Falcons, one of several teams through both the public and Catholic school boards that will participate in the study.

Before the start of this year’s high school football season, Champagne and his team analyzed how each player engaged in activities like tackling and blocking.

Using a variety of tools like video analysis, Champagne says they were able to provide feedback to the players on how to improve their technique.

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“We’re looking at movement … Are there movements that are common in players at that age that are related to mechanisms of injury? If we can target those and modify them we’re hoping that will reduce the risk of injury.”

With the season just beginning, Champagne is still gathering data but says he’s had promising results.

Frontenac Secondary School’s junior varsity head coach Bruce Patry says they’ve changed how they conduct practices to reduce risks to the players.

“You’ll see within our practice we do very little contact in practice.”

Champagne says while football is his focus right now, what is being developed in the project can be adapted to other sports.

“We have the infrastructure that’s ready for soccer, for rugby and for hockey. It’s really the same idea. All you’re changing is the assessment.”