March 14, 2014

Helmet hair, or long-term care?

You could say our brains are our own personal and most important commodities. In fact, the most talented athletes rely on a delicate network of neurons in our brain that control those fast actions and reactions they demonstrate.

What researchers are discovering more and more is that blows to the head are a serious threat to cerebral health. Normally the brain floats in protective cerebrospinal fluid. Harder knocks bump the brain back and forth in this fluid bath, and if the impact is hard enough, can damage the axons that brain cells use to send vital messages.

Every year about 4 million Americans experience blows to the head severe enough to be classified as concussions. Severe concussions can take days, weeks, or more to recover from, and can have longterm repercussions to brain health. Though helmets don’t do enough yet to eliminate the risk of concussions (we’ll cover that in a coming post), they are, especially when fitted and worn correctly, a good first defense.

But tell that to a teenager with a complicated ‘do. Or any of us, really – helmets can be hell on the hairstyle. Brain injury survivor Greg Goldberg just knows from experience that there are worse things than helmet hair. So with the British Columbia Brain Injury Association (BCBIA) and the Cridge Center, he set out to find a slogan that might resonate with all of us.

What he and BCBIA came up with doesn’t solve our helmet hair woes (look here for some women-oriented tips on that). Goldberg’s slogan just puts them in the proper context.