Isla is conducting her masters thesis with Dr. Carolyn Emery. Her project is an evaluation of how a neuromuscular training warm-up affects injury and concussion incidence in high school girls rugby. 

Rugby is a fast-growing sport in Canada. Individual’s get their first exposure in high school, which delays the acquisition of fundamental skills to be successful at the sport, such as tackling. Currently, there is minimal research on female, youth rugby player in the literature.

Female high school rugby players from Calgary, AB were tracked in the 2018 and 2019 baseline, or pre-intervention, years for injuries and concussions. Injuries were verified by a certified athletic therapist if they met the injury definition for the greater parent project (SHRed-Surveillance in High Schools to Reduce Injury and Concussion though Prevention and Management). These definitions included an all-complaints, medical-attention and time-loss definition. Injuries were tracked through on online weekly Oslo Sport Trauma questionnaire. If a concussion occurred to a study participant, the participant was then referred to a sports medicine doctor for follow-up and return-to-play protocols.

For the third year of the study, a neuromuscular training warm-up will be delivered via workshop to high school coaches in the study. Over the season, injuries and exposure will be tracked again, but the use of the warm-up will be tracked through number of times per week it is completed and which exercises were used. At the beginning of each season, a pre-season baseline questionnaire and a SCAT test are administered for participant injury and athletic history and a baseline SCAT score. Analysis will be done to compare injury and concussion incidence pre and post warm-up intervention. This project falls under the larger NFL project in the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre at U of C.

Isla is also the Team Lead for the SHRed Injuries: Preventing Injuries and their Consequences in Youth Sport and Recreation project.

Supervisor: Carolyn Emery

Lab: Sports Injury Prevention Research Centre

Contact: isla.shill@ucalgary.ca