Football season is right around the corner as many high school, college, and professional teams have already begun practicing for the upcoming seasons.
While players are excited to get back on the field after time off, football carries an inevitable risk of injury due to the constant contact involved.
Over the years, many football fields around the nation have transitioned from natural grass to artificial turf due to the cost and ease of managing the field.
This change has resulted in concerns that artificial turf could increase concussions, but a new study found this might not be true.
Clinical Neuropsychologist Dr. Munro Cullum of the UT Southwestern Medical Center conducted the study and found that concussions have seemingly decreased using the newer artificial turf, reported KERA.
“Those of us that were on athletic fields many, many years ago recall that sometimes it was a very, very thin layer of fake grass over almost concrete. So, it was very, very hard. And now most of the modern turfs do have some level of rubber or other padding underneath, although there’s still a lot of variability,” Cullum said.
Although the study indicates that artificial turf might actually be safer than natural grass, Cullum said that it might be “a little preliminary” to reach that conclusion without more studies.
“But the results did find that the symptoms were lower and less severe on the turf compared to grass. Now, just like with artificial turf, grass obviously varies tremendously from field to field, so that may play a role as well,” he explained, per KERA.
Cullum said that schools considering installing artificial turf should be mindful of the style selected, as this is likely the biggest contributor to whether or not concussions are sustained at a higher rate than natural grass.
“It suggests the nature of the football field should be looked at. And they should probably be evaluated for how new are the surfaces, how hard are the surfaces. And review that periodically if a school has turf that’s very, very old. Maybe it’s time to look at a renewed surface that might be somewhat more pliable, more soft,” Cullum added, per KERA.
