Blow by Blow: The Second Annual Donald Sanderson Memorial Symposium on Sport Concussion is open to the public – athletes, coaches, parents, researchers and anyone interested in the physical and psychological impact head injuries can have on individuals and their families.

91��ɫ’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science will host the two-hour evening event, which will bring sports medicine and brain researchers together with athletes to discuss an injury that continues to impair the careers and health of both amateur and professional athletes − most recently, hockey champion Sidney Crosby.

The symposium is held in honour of Donald Sanderson, the 91��ɫ kinesiology student and promising hockey player who died Jan. 2, 2009 as a result of a head injury during a Whitby Dunlops game. 

     Right: Matt Dunigan

"Educating our student athletes about head injuries is critical,” says Cindy Hughes, manager of the Gorman/Shore Sport Injury Clinic in 91��ɫ’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science, who helped organize the symposium. “They need to understand the importance of reporting a possible concussion right away so they can receive the proper care."

, a game analyst with TSN since 1996, played football for 14 years on five Canadian teams and was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2006. He retired from football in 1996 after suffering at least a dozen diagnosed concussions, and continues to struggle with the long-term effects of those concussions. He will speak about the post-concussive symptoms he has experienced since retirement and the effect of concussion on himself and his family, as well as the importance of reporting concussion and taking it seriously. A champion of research on sport concussion, Dunigan announced last spring that upon his death his brain will be donated to Toronto’s Krembil Neuroscience Centre.

Dahna Sanderson, who established the Donald Sanderson Memorial Trust Fund in memory of her son, will also speak during the symposium. A sports mom and fan for 20 years, she coached professional figure skating and is passionate about sports and sports safety. 

is a primary care sport medicine specialist, certified in family and sports medicine in Canada and the US. Currently practising in Burlington, he has been a junior hockey team physician for the past decade in Canada and the US. He is a research chair of the Hockey Neurotrauma and Concussion Initiative Research Committee and is primary investigator of the Hockey Concussion Education Project. 

Lauren Sergio is a professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Health. A neuroscientist, she studies the effects of age, sex, neurological disease, head injury and experience (élite versus non-élite athletes) on the brain’s control of complex movement. She works with a wide range of adults, from NHL draft prospects to Alzheimer’s disease patients, using behavioural and brain imaging techniques. 

Left: Lauren Sergio

Roy McMurtry, 91��ɫ chancellor and former chair and chief executive officer of the Canadian Football League, will deliver opening remarks. Award-winning CBC sports reporter Teddy Katz will MC the event. 

The symposium takes place in the Price Family Cinema, Accolade East Building, from 7 to 9pm. Admission is free, but registration is required. To register and for more information on speakers, visit the symposium website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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AQUA, an amphibious, otter-like robot, is small and nimble, with flippers rather than propellers, designed for intricate data collection from shipwrecks and reefs.

The robot, a joint project of 91��ɫ, McGill and Dalhousie universities, can now be controlled wirelessly using a waterproof tablet built at 91��ɫ. While underwater, divers can program the tablet to display tags onscreen, similar to bar codes read by smartphones. The robot’s on-board camera then scans these two-dimensional tags to receive and carry out commands.

Cutting the cord on underwater robots has been a long-standing challenge for scientists; water interferes with radio signals, hindering traditional wireless communication via modem. Tethered communication is cumbersome and can create safety issues for divers.

“Having a robot tethered to a vehicle above water creates a scenario where communication between the diver, robot, and surface operator becomes quite complicated,” says (right), professor in 91��ɫ’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering in the Faculty of Science & Engineering and co-author of the forthcoming paper, "Swimming with Robots: Human Robot Communication at Depth".

“Investigating a shipwreck, for example, is a very delicate operation and the diver and robot need to be able to react quickly to changes in the environment. An error or a lag in communication could be dangerous,” Jenkin says.

Realizing there was no device on the market that fit the bill, Jenkin and his team at 91��ɫ’s Centre for Vision Research, including the paper’s lead author, master in computer science student , set to work constructing a prototype. The resulting device, fittingly dubbed AQUATablet, is watertight to a depth of 60 feet. Aluminum housing with a clear acrylic cover protects the tablet computer, which can be controlled by a diver using toggle-switches and on-screen prompts.

“A diver at 60 feet can actually teleoperate AQUA 30 to 40 feet deeper. Needless to say this is much easier on the diver, physically and much safer,” Jenkin says.

The tablet also allows divers to command the robot much as if they were using a video game joystick; turn the tablet right and AQUA turns right, too. In this mode, the robot is connected to the tablet by a slim length of optical cable, circumventing many of the issues of a robot-to-surface tether. The optical cable also allows AQUA to provide video feedback from its camera to the operator. In a totally wireless mode, the robot acknowledges prompts by flashing its on-board light. Its cameras can be used to build 3-D models of the environment which can then be used to guide the robot to particular tasks.

“This is a huge improvement on [a robot] having to travel to the surface to communicate with its operators,” Jenkin says.

In the past, divers have used laminated flashcards to visually communicate with robots while underwater. However, these limit the diver to a pre-set sequence of commands.

“It’s impossible to anticipate everything you’re going to want the robot to do once you get underwater. We wanted to develop a system where we could create commands on the fly, in response to the environment,” he says.

Jenkin and Verzijlenberg’s paper will be presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in Taiwan.

Jenkin and Verzijlenberg are two of the researchers based in 91��ɫ’s new state-of-the-art Sherman Health Science Research Centre, which officially opened on Sept. 14. Jenkin leads the Canadian Centre for Field Robotics, which is based on the building’s main level. The centre is supported by a grant from the . The AQUA project is funded in part by the . 91��ɫ's Centre for Vision Research is part of the Faculty of Health.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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Falls on a playground may go with the territory, but many children’s spills and tumbles off playground equipment can lead to emergency room visits and hospital stays. And just how badly a child is hurt not only depends on how far they fall, but also on the type of surface they land on.

The study shows the risk of an arm fracture from a fall off playground equipment is 4.9 times higher on a wood-chip surface compared to sand. Risks of other types of injuries are also higher on wood-chip surfaces.

Above: Researchers at SickKids and 91��ɫ found that sand surfacing in playgrounds reduces the risk of arm fractures in children from falls off the equipment. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

“Broken arms from playground equipment falls are common and can be severe. A simple sand surface, properly maintained, can prevent many of these injuries,” says Dr. Andrew Howard, the study’s lead author and SickKids orthopedic surgeon, scientist and associate professor in the Departments of Surgery and Health Policy, Management & Evaluation, at the University of Toronto. “We hope these findings will help update standards to reduce the most common injuries without limiting children’s access to healthy outdoor play.”

Alison Macpherson (right), professor in 91��ɫ's School of Kinesiology & Health Science, acted as senior author on the study.

“We found fewer injuries overall than we expected on playgrounds, which shows that the Canadian Standards Association requirement for playground surfaces is protecting children,” says Macpherson. “This study suggests schools could reduce the number of broken arms even further by choosing sand.”

In 2003, the researchers took advantage of a unique opportunity to conduct a real-life randomized trial. The Toronto District School Board was resurfacing a number of school playgrounds and partnered with SickKids in the research. Over a two-and-a-half-year period, 28 schools joined the study and reported on the types of injuries and how they occurred.

There were fewer fractures on sand because it has a lower friction surface and allows the hand to slide or sink, limiting bending and preventing a fracture, says Howard.

The study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the SickKids Foundation. Funding for the playground installations was provided by the Toronto District School Board.

For more information about playground safety, visit the Web site.

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