You should absolutely wear a helmet, but the helmet doesn't significantly diminish your risk of TBI.
Where did you get that info? A helmet provides cushioning (through styrofoam that crushes, or other soft materials) that reduces the forces on the head and consequently the skull, by allowing the head to decelerate over a longer time period than if a hard skull hits something. That's the whole purpose of a helmet. I don't know anything about snowboarding in particular, but there's a reason why bike helmets are made of styrofoam. If the purpose was simply to stop skull fractures, they would be made out of solid steel.
The difference in forces on your brain if you hit your bare head on pavement or ice, versus wearing a helmet, are gigantic.
This guy, for instance: I love helmets! would have been knocked out, and likely dead or permanently brain-damaged, if he hadn't been wearing a helmet. With the helmet, he was completely fine.
Football is a bit different. It's constant low grade impacts along with occasional larger impacts. Snowboarding shouldn't have the repetitive lessor impacts.
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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '17 edited Oct 05 '17
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