Keep Your Eyes on the Ball!

As sports-related student injuries - and suitably, parental concern - are on the rise, the causes and subsequent solutions to these injuries must be further explored. One of the most common athletic injuries is the concussion, and while many parents simply advise their children to avoid aggression or assertiveness on the playing field, new research suggests a more calculated approach is needed for preventing a concussion.

A study by the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine discovered that while only 79% of male soccer players close their eyes while performing a “header”, 90.6% of female soccer players do the same. The study suggests that due to the blinking reflex, a brief lack of visual awareness may be the reason why female soccer players experience a much higher rate of concussions than male players. The study’s researchers also proposed that sports vision training, which seeks to improve spacial awareness and blinking reflexes, may provide athletes with better strategies to avoid collision injuries. By training the eyes to assess the body’s location in relation to the ball and other players, and then taming the blinking reflex, researchers believe that the occurrence of sports-related concussions will decrease.

Many optometrists and ophthalmologists are very hopeful about a possible rise in sports vision training. Keith Smithson, an optometrist who works closely with professional soccer teams in Washington D.C., anticipates that as the knowledge of visual training benefits increases, it will become as procedural as stretching for both teams and individual athletes.

New developments in sports vision training and other athletic-related research will be presented at the Optometry’s Meeting, hosted by the American Optometric Association, from June 21-25 in Washington D.C..

Source: American Optometric Association

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