By Julian Evans | Chief Executive Officer of Love of the Game
Love of the Game is a campaign which seeks to reduce concussion-related issues arising from contact and non-contact sports. Love of the Game takes a solutions-based approach to the problem by working with athletes, technologists, academics and the business and financial communities to develop new technologies that will prevent, diagnose and treat head injuries in sport.
We are an impassioned community of athletes, players, fans, innovators and experts, united by our love of sport and the desire to, not only protect players of all ages from the potentially devastating impact of head injuries, but also to protect the integrity of the sports we know and love. Love of the Game aims to preserve our sports by reducing the risk of early onset dementia to players, lengthening sporting careers and reducing the fear of taking part.
Our mission statement is:
To protect players of all ages from the potentially devastating impact of head injuries, while also protecting the integrity of the sports we know and love.
Like most sports, success is the product of a whole team. Solving this crisis is no different. We have brought together a unique network of over 600 supporters representing the UK’s major sports, government, academia, technology, science and business. We are forging new and productive relationships with major and grass-roots sporting clubs, research institutes, charitable organisations and major governing sports bodies.
Love of the Game (LOTG) itself represents a meeting of the worlds of sport and business/campaigning through its founders: former England and British and Irish Lions rugby union international Simon Shaw MBE and businessman and dementia care pioneer Laurence Geller CBE. Simon, who played elite rugby for 23 years, now suffers from frequent memory loss, an issue he believes is caused by the severe knocks to the head he faced as a player. Meanwhile, after seeing the debilitating effects of dementia first-hand, hospitality businessman Laurence turned his attention to the world of dementia research, funding and care innovation.
When the two met and shared their mutual love of sport and their respective experiences of severe head injuries and dementia, they decided to found LOTG as a campaign to promote the use science to solve this most pressing issue.
Solutions-based approach
Rather than focusing on the challenges of the past, LOTG’s aim is to protect the players of the future and ensure that future athletes are protected from long term health risks that yesterday’s and today’s players have had to accept. In order to achieve this, LOTG promotes actions across a series of pillars:
Education
Diagnosis
Treatment & prevention
Laurence Geller CBE appointed as a Ministerial Adviser on Concussion in Sport
In July 2021 Sports Minister, Nigel Huddleston, announced that Laurence Geller had been appointed as his advisor with the formal title of Independent Adviser to the Government on Concussion in Sport. Laurence’s task is to drive forward understanding of head injuries in sport and accelerate action by National Governing Bodies; and to shape further government action to ensure that sport is as safe as possible for all. In its Response of 10 December 2021 to the UK Parliamentary Select Committee’s Inquiry into Concussion in Sport’s report of July 2021, the Government made clear the important role to be played by LOTG including developing new shared protocols for concussion injuries in sport and the identification of technological advances to mitigate the consequences.
Driving innovation around concussion related technology - Demonstration Day & WAVi Trials
We held a Hakathon in March 2021 and followed this up with a Demo Day in December 2021 at which three of the Hackathon winning team plus two others demonstrated their cutting-edge innovations and systems. The goal of the event was to facilitate an understanding of what each demonstrated technology does, how the product appeals to market requirements, in addition to demonstrating the practical application of each individual product being featured. Guests had the opportunity to learn more about the different solutions and provide their support. The Demo Day was a success and, with Government encouragement, we intend to host another Demo Day in September 2022 and another Hakathon in October/November 2022.
One of those products is the WAVi system, an all-in-one measurement platform that provides clinicians with objective information about brain performance. LOTG will be part-funding trials which will take place in partnership with both London area and Cornish Rugby Clubs, and include both male and female, adult and youth teams. The trials will support amateur and professional sports persons throughout their respective seasons, providing us with new insight into concussion related head injuries. The WAVi system was featured on the BBC on 2 May https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61269585
Protocols Surrounding Concussion
LOTG shares the Government’s view that protocols around concussion in sport need updating and that they need to provide better information on concussion and actions needed to manage safe return to play. They should be consistent across all sports. We welcome the decision to set up a Panel to develop these new baseline protocols and to ensure that they are continuously upgraded on the basis of new information, research and technological innovations. This Panel will complete its initial work by the summer of 2022. LOTG is playing a key role in the work of this Panel and will also contribute its knowledge of new technological innovations and research to help ensure the protocols remain up to date.
Concussion Centres
LOTG believes it is important to ensure country-wide coverage of access to concussion diagnosis and treatment facilities. This is particularly so in the case of grass-roots sports, where we would seek to provide support to local sports networks which do not have the facilities available to elite sports. We see these centres as providing continuity of care in concussion management, from diagnosis to follow up. They will help people to return to sport quickly, safely and efficiently. We have therefore set up a Regional Sports Concussion Network comprising over a dozen centres of excellent in England, which is co-chaired by Professor Peter Hutchinson of the University of Cambridge and Professor Mike Parker of Love of the Game. The network has met twice so far.
LOTG also believes that there is a need for a central institute which can coordinate research and development and be the leading authority and think tank on issues pertaining to concussion-related injuries in all sports for all ages and at all levels. It would be an innovation hub, a centre of excellence and organisation of research, as well as a repository of concussion injuries and research information which can be accessed by those involved in the prevention and treatment of concussion-related health issues. We accept that more work on the funding, management arrangements and location is required and look forward to working closely with the Government and those in sports and medicine to bring this to fruition.
By Julian Evans | Executive Director of Love of the Game
By Colin Hermon | Love of the Game Administrator
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