10/13/2026
🏈 **What can three young football players teach us about neck function and concussion risk?**
These are scans from three young football players. They measure how accurately their brains can sense where their heads are positioned.
If you look at each image, you'll see that they all have some issues.
But each is a little different in that this head position sensing ability is sometimes ok, and sometimes fails.
And that failure depends on which direction the head is moving.
Why does this matter?
This awareness helps control and stabilize the head and neck during movement.
Research suggests that poor head position awareness may contribute to injury risk and can also be a lingering sign of concussion, even when obvious symptoms have disappeared.
Two of the three players experienced ongoing pain after repeated and routine contact with the ground or another player.
**These hidden problems can go unnoticed during routine examinations.**
While this test alone doesn't diagnose a concussion, it gives us a valuable look at how well the neck and brain are working together.
And while we can never predict a future injury based on a single test, we can include this data in a comprehensive risk assessment.
It also gives us a baseline of function in case any of these players experience an event that may involve concussion.
Finally, we hope that as these players address neck their neck and posture imbalances with our chiropractic care, we will see improvement in their scans.
We often do.
If we don't, that tells us that other interventions may be necessary to make sure that basic function of head control is regained.
This information can be critical for long term health, not just in youth athletes, but for adults, and those who are in their golden years.
