Helmets for Head Injured Riders
Summary: The first and most important thing to remember is: pay attention to what your doctors tell you to do! Do not ride before they say it is ok. If you have had a brain injury, the next one can occur from a lesser blow. Do what your doctors tell you to do! The rest is a detail.
If you have suffered a brain injury and are recovering, your doctors may have told you not to ride your bicycle for a while. And they likely did tell you to be sure to use a helmet if you ride a bicycle. As you know, after one brain injury you are much more likely to be injured again if you crash. A blow that might not injure another rider can injure you.
The question is: what helmet should I wear? What is the safest brand and model for a rider who needs the softest possible landing in a crash?
The answer is unfortunately that we do not know. There are several reasons:
- Helmets are designed for people who can take the normal amount of shock without being injured. No manufacturer we know of is designing for riders who have already suffered a brain injury. The standards they design to assume that you can take 300 g without permanent injury. Odds are that you can't take that much after a prior injury. In fact, there is considerable evidence that most people can't take that much with substantial damage, even if they have never been injured before.
- Only lab testing of all the helmets on the market would allow us to tell you which of them would provide the softest landing. We can't afford that. Consumer Reports does helmet articles, but they can only test a few of the hundreds of models on the market. You can check out their latest article for their recommendations. But they rate helmets highest for impact protection if they can take a heavier blow, not if they give the softest landing in normal blows.
- Manufacturers are afraid of being sued if they advertise a helmet as more likely to protect you in a crash. If you look at their advertising you will see that they talk about everything but the crash performance of the helmet! They use catchy slogans, good-looking models, celebrities, styling and a lot of other things that a rider who has already had a head injury doesn't care much about. They don't make products they can't advertise, so there is less incentive than there should be to make a safer helmet, and no incentive to make one for head-injured riders.
Our advice
With those points in mind, our advice has to be based on general knowledge of the helmets we deal with, not on testing of brands and models. We look for the same type of helmet for our own personal use that you want: the safest. Here are some general points:
- You probably don't want to buy an expensive helmet. Manufacturers put premium prices on the helmets with the most vents, the least foam, and the best styling. Safer helmets are sold right beside the others, but they can't advertise the safety so they can't charge you more for them. Provided you fit them carefully to your head, cheap helmets can be safer for you than the expensive ones.
- You probably want the thickest helmet you can find. If a helmet has to stop you in a half inch, that's a quick stop. If it has a full inch to stop you, the shock to the brain should be much less. This is a basic law of physics and can't be repealed with miracle materials.
- The crushable foam in bike helmets all looks the same, but it is not. Some of it is denser and a little bit harder. That's not for you. With a lot of practice you can actually tell with a thumb squeeze which helmets have harder foam. Don't try that at home, since you leave a dent in the helmet! As a general rule of thumb, the helmets that are thicker and have fewer vents tend to have the least dense foam, but not always.
- You want a helmet with moderate vents. The hyper-ventilated helmets with huge vents use skinny foam ribs between the vents. That foam has to be harder than the thicker foam sections on a helmet with normal vents. The helmet with more foam is more likely to be the softest landing helmet.
- You want good coverage of your head, so look for a helmet that comes further down on the sides and in back. You can help that by taking out the pads in the top to let the helmet settle further down and cover more of your head. With the exception of skate helmets, manufacturers don't usually give you extended protection. They can't advertise it or charge you more for it, and it adds to heat, weight and the likelihood of rubbing on your ears in an irritating way.
- Some of the best, most protective helmets are the cheap models sold in discount stores. They have smaller vents, so there is more foam in between. They are made with cheaper construction techniques that require the use of thicker foam. Do not dismiss them because they are under $20. They generally are harder to fit well, but their impact protection is assured because they have to meet the CPSC bike helmet standard to be sold in the US market.
Some day we may have test data to make brand and model recommendations for people who have already suffered a head injury. When we do, it will be posted here immediately.
It is better not to crash at all than to crash and have a helmet save your head. You will have to be much more careful than a normal rider. For example, you can't treat these as ho-hum warnings any more:
- Keep your speed down
- Be ready to stop at intersections
- Do not assume that car drivers see you
- Slow down for those blind curves in the trail
- Slow down for other trail or road users
- Be ready to stop for a dog or child who can dart in front of you.
- Never ride on ice or snow--it can be done, but not without falling unless you have a tricycle or four wheel bike.
- Think twice about riding in rain. Your tires will have less traction in the wet, and rain can interfere with your vision.
- Scan the road ahead carefully for rocks or potholes
- Don't run stop signs and red lights
- Don't ride on the wrong side of the road
There are more. It sounds bad, but actually is not. You will feel safer and live longer without another brain injury if you don't crash!
If you were looking for information for a child with developmental disabilites, we have another page on that.
This page was last revised on: September 4, 2006.
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