For these of a sure age, Coneheads is an iconic 90s movie. However for breakdancers, it appears, creating a cone-shaped head could be an occupational hazard.
Based on a 2024 medical case report, a breakdancer who’d been performing for 19 years was handled for “headspin gap”, a situation also referred to as “breakdancer bulge” that is distinctive to breakdancers. It entails a cone formed mass creating on high of the scalp after repetitive head-spinning. Extra signs can embody hair loss and typically ache across the lump.
Roughly 30 p.c of breakdancers report hair loss and irritation of their scalp from head-spinning. A headspin gap is brought on by the physique attempting to guard itself. The repeated trauma from head-spinning causes the epicranial aponeurosis – a layer of connective tissue just like a tendon, operating from the again of your head to the entrance – to thicken together with the layer of fats below the pores and skin on high of the top in an try to guard the bones of cranium from harm.
The physique causes the same protecting response to friction on the fingers and toes, the place callouses type to unfold the stress and shield the underlying tissues from harm. On a regular basis repetitive actions from holding smartphones or heavy weights by means of to poorly becoming sneakers may end up in callouses.
However a cone-shaped head is not the one harm to which breakdancers are susceptible, nevertheless. Widespread points can embody wrist, knee, hip, ankle, foot and elbow accidents, and strikes such because the “windmill” and the “backspin” could cause bursitis – irritation of the fluid crammed sacs that shield the vertebrae of the backbone.
A headspin gap is not the worst harm you possibly can maintain from breakdancing both. One dancer broke their neck however fortunately they have been fortunate sufficient to not have any main problems.
Others, similar to Ukrainian breakdancer Anna Ponomarenko, have skilled pinched nerves which have left them paralysed. Ponomarenko recovered to characterize her nation within the Paris 2024 Olympics.
As with different sports activities, it is unsurprising to listen to that using protecting tools ends in the discount of accidents in breakdancing too.
However breakdancers aren’t the one ones to develop cone formed heads.
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Newborns
Some infants are born with a conical head after their pliable cranium has been squeezed and squashed in the course of the journey by means of the vaginal canal and the muscular contractions of mom’s uterus.
A misshapen head may also be brought on by caput secundum, the place fluid collects below the pores and skin, above the cranium bones. Normally, this situation resolves itself inside a number of days. Infants who’ve been delivered utilizing a vacuum assisted cup (often called a Ventouse) – the place the cup is utilized to the highest of the child’s head to tug them out – can develop the same fluid lump referred to as a chignon.
Vacuum assisted supply may end in a extra important lump and bruising referred to as a cephalohematoma, the place blood vessels within the bones of the cranium rupture. That is twice as widespread in boys than in ladies and resolves inside two weeks to 6 months.
When you’ve ever seen newborns carrying tiny hats within the first few hours of their life, then certainly one of these circumstances could be the purpose.
Some kids can also current with “cone-head” because of craniosynostosis, which happens in about one in each 2,000-2,500 dwell births.
New child skulls are made up of a lot of small bony plates that are not fused collectively, which allows infants’ brains to develop with out restriction. Normally, as soon as the mind reaches a slower progress tempo that the bones can sustain with, the plates fuse collectively.
In craniosynostosis, the plates fuse collectively too early creating in another way formed heads. Surgical procedure can forestall mind progress restriction however is often pointless if the kid hasn’t been recognized as having an formed head by six months of age.
Adam Taylor, Professor and Director of the Scientific Anatomy Studying Centre, Lancaster College
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