Football: Chilling medical news for pros and teens
There was a shadow over this year’s National Football League (NFL) kickoff game on Sept. 5. A report by the American Academy of Neurology confirmed the frequency of serious brain injuries in football. The chilling report, issued just days before the season, sent shivers through the football community. Concussions are common and research highlights the danger of repetitive hits to the head. Perhaps most troubling was the report’s discussion of the effects of a head injury on young athletes whose brains are still growing.
The study, published in Neurology, included 3,439 former NFL players with an average age of 57. The researchers determined that professional football players were three times more likely to die as a result of diseases that damage brain cells than the general population. They cited the risk of death from Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) to be four times higher than in the general population.
The NFL donated $30 million to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health for brain research and $1 million to the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), which has pointed out that “changes in the brain can begin months, years, or even decades after the last brain trauma or end of active athletic involvement.”
Dr. Ann McKee, co-director of the center, said: “In autopsies of some teens who played high-school football, we found early changes of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brain — similar to the more advanced stages found in older players.”
The center’s autopsies show such changes in the brain as tau protein deposits and neurofibrillary tangles consistent with brain injuries.
Troubling news regarding players’ health and the NFL had been brewing. Last year Duane Daverson, 50, of the San Diego Chargers, committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest. He apparently indicated that he wanted his brain donated to research. Last May, Junior Seau, 43, of the San Diego Chargers (formerly with the New England Patriots), killed himself the same way.
Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the NFL; these were consolidated in June into a mega-lawsuit charging that players were not adequately informed of the medical risks.
According to the CSTE, “The physical symptoms associated with brain degeneration include memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse-control problems, aggression, depression, and eventually progressive dementia.”
The American Association of Neurological Surgeons in 2011 estimated that the leading cause of death from sports-related injuries is traumatic brain injury. The first item on its Web site says, “Sports and recreational activities contribute to about 21 percent of all traumatic brain injuries among American children and adolescents.”
In 2010, the journal Pediatrics reported on a review of national databases of emergency departments that found that in visits by teens half of the 502,000 visits were sports-related. About 95,000 resulted from concussions that students received playing football, basketball, baseball, soccer and ice hockey.
More than five years ago, Dr. Ann Van Cott, at the University of Pittsburgh, sounded the alarm about repetitive head injuries. She said she was concerned about even mild repetitive head injuries on the battlefield and among young people who played contact sports.
Dr. Elizabeth Jacobs, of the emergency department at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, in Providence, is also concerned. “Shouldn’t we be rethinking how this game is played? My own frustration comes when I see kids show up in the E.R. whose parents tell me were returned to play after an injury . . . . Despite my mantra ‘When in doubt, sit them out,’ it’s just not happening.”
Dr. J.J. Trey Crisco is using accelerometers to study sports-related concussions. Director of the Bioengineering Laboratory in the Department of Orthopedics at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. He was one of the co-authors of a recent report in Neurology studying college athletes. The findings: “Repetitive head impacts over the course of a single season may negatively impact learning in some collegiate athletes.”
He said: “Our technology and studies have been focused at understanding the link between head-impact biomechanics and acute brain injury. We have accomplished quite a lot in the past five years in advancing our understanding of the biomechanics, but establishing definitive relationships with concussion injury remains.”
Given the documented danger with the sport, the question must be asked, “Does the game need to change?” In many ways it has, at least in practice sessions, with more safety precautions and regulations being issued. But will football ever be safe for young people?
Dr. Cisco is not prepared to suggest that children under 14 should be curtailed from participating in such contact sports as football. He said, “In my opinion, education and rules addressing the intentional use of the head is a more prudent approach.”
For young people, it seems the sure way to keep them injury-free is to turn them onto Fantasy Football. They might still be able to experience the thrill without the risk of personal injury. While it doesn’t give them exercise, it will keep them safe.
Rita Watson is a regular contributor and a columnist for The Journal’s “All About You” section.