Biomedical researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine have found that youth football players sustain more hits to the head as they get older. Those hits get a lot harder, too.Mireille Kelley is a graduate student who contributed to the study. She helped measure head impacts of 97 youth football players divided into levels: age 11-and under, 12-and-under, and 13-and-under.
Data from helmet sensors showed much more intense hits in the 13-year-olds, especially during games.
鈥淲e're seeing that they're hitting a little bit harder and more frequently, even from one age and weight level to the next,鈥� Kelley said. 鈥淎nd we are seeing the biggest differences in their head impact severity, and the number of impacts, in competition.鈥�
This comes as concussions and head trauma are being heavily scrutinized in professional football.
鈥淭here are 2,000 NFL players. There's about 2,000 youth players for every single NFL player,鈥� said Joel Stitzel, a biomedical engineering professor at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. 鈥淪o the group about which you hear the most 鈥� the NFL 鈥� is a tiny, tiny minority of the total that's playing in the country.鈥�
Stitzel said this data is important for making well-informed decisions about rules.
The research was published this summer in the Journal of .
