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Doctors Confirm Headbanging Caused Concertgoer’s Brain Injury
German doctors, studying a 50-year-old man who developed a brain bleed after a Motorhead concert, have concluded that headbanging is to blame. They're now warning others about the dangers.
The man, who had no history of head trauma or drug use, said he'd had a constant headache since attending the show, the BBC reports. He was treated by Hannover Medical School neurosurgeons in Jan. 2013, a month afterward. A brain scan revealed a right-side clot, which was successfully removed.
“We assume that headbanging, with its brisk forward and back acceleration and deceleration forces, led to rupturing of bridging veins,” Dr. Ariyan Pirayesh Islamian of Hannover tells CBS. “The risk of injury is very, very low. But I think if (our patient) had (gone) to a classical concert, this would not have happened.” Still, he adds, "Heavy metal fans should rock on."
Thus far, the BBC notes that only three other cases of bleeding on the brain -- known in medical terms as a subdural hematoma -- have been conclusively linked to headbanging. In a spooky coincidence, last year, Motorhead frontman Lemmy, the ultimate headbanger, suffered a hematoma, which caused the cancellation of several shows.
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