December 22, 2008 12:03 PM
Why you should only listen to Air Supply - headbanger health hazards
Fans who head-bang along to their favorite heavy metal bands risk head and neck injury, says the British Medical Journey.
An average head banging song has a tempo of about 146 beats per minute, which is predicted to cause mild head injury when the range of motion is greater than 75°. At higher tempos and greater ranges of motion there is a risk of neck injury.Young people at heavy metal concerts often report being dazed and confused, possible symptoms of mild traumatic brain injury. Little formal injury research has been conducted on the world wide phenomenon of head banging, even though case reports indicate the inherent risks in this activity, especially in head and neck injury. Head banging is a violent activity associated with hard rock and various subgenres of heavy metal.
There are many different styles of head banging such as the up-down, the circular swing, the full body, or the side-to-side. It is thought that head banging to loud music, while making you more "metal," has associated risks other than acquired hearing loss. Jason Newsted, known for his circular swinging style head banging, gave "physical damage" as one of the reasons for his departure from the band Metallica in 2001. In 2005, doctors believed that Terry Balsamo, the guitarist from the band Evanescence, experienced a stroke from head banging. Head banging caused a traumatic aneurysm of the cervical vertebral artery in a 15 year old drummer, and one case of subdural haematoma was reported to be caused by the shearing strain induced by the head and neck motion exhibited during head banging. Even though there are only a few unique cases documented, neurosurgical specialists question whether the incidence rate could be much higher because the symptoms are clinically silent or cause only mild headache that resolves spontaneously.8 We investigated the injury risk arising from head banging using biomechanical methods and the possible methods for controlling those risks.
See, we told you kids to turn that music down.
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