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in collaboration with
Dr Gérald Kierzek (Medical Director)
Well known to heavy metal fans, the headbang, this dance repeatedly throwing the head forward, is not trivial: it is likely to create head trauma and damage the neck.
For those who frequent heavy metal scenes, the phenomenon is not surprising: to punctuate the rhythm with their favorite sound, fans of the genre frantically shake their heads back and forth, or from left to right in a choreographed stripping rough. An expenditure of energy “in communion” which delights the spectators, without worrying them about the consequences. Yet this action, executed without restraint, can lead to traumas which are not very rock’n roll.
Brain hematomas are possible
The headbang is not often perceived as dangerous by its practitioners. Quoted by Europe 1, a young 22-year-old heavy metal fan details it in her own way: “All I could notice was a little aches in the back of my neck. When I play sports, and I have aches, it’s the same feeling. So I figure it’s just muscle. A concert does not last too long, so we can let go.
However, the practice of the headbang, this famous letting go, would be at the origin in particular of cerebral hematomas and rupture of vessels, as already mentioned in 2014 a study by The Lancet on the subject. And as the neurologist Jean-François Chermann points out, still on Europe 1: “When there are these movements which are extremely intense and extremely ample, the cervical do not maintain the brain”. Especially when each of the titles played lasts from 2 to 4 minutes… several times in a row.
For Dr. Gérald Kierzek, medical director of Doctissimo, it is undoubtedly useful to take stock of a few notions of anatomy to understand the danger:
“Overall, the skull is an undeformable box, in which the brain remains mobile. By violently shaking its head repeatedly, the floating brain hits the skull. This can be the cause of certain deceleration mechanisms, such as concussions, head trauma, a rupture of the vessels, in short, repeated microtraumas which are annoying, especially for people on anticoagulants.”.
The brain is not the only area impacted by the headband:
“The other concern is the blow suffered by the cervical and cervical arteries which can lead to carotid vertebral dissections. This heabdand is a bit like the shaken baby syndrome… among metalheads” concludes the emergency doctor.
Real risks to take into account before going pogoter on heavy-metal.