Brain injury from contact sports doesn't just affect professional athletes:
Evan Hansen was born to play football. A strong, rambunctious kid, he started playing sports year-round as early as he could. "He was very selfless, always willing to sacrifice himself for the betterment of the team," says his father, Chuck Hansen. As a fearless linebacker at Wabash College in Indiana, the young player made 209 tackles in his first three seasons, and was hit far more than that during games and practices. Two days after winning the second game of his senior year, Evan died by suicide.
Searching for an explanation, Chuck Hansen pored through his son's internet search history. One query popped out: "CTE."
CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative brain disease that causes symptoms like memory loss, depression, and emotional dysregulation. Since 2005, it has been linked to head trauma and to contact sports like football, where brains can get knocked around during tackles and collisions. In 2016, the National Football League acknowledged that the sport was linked to CTE after many retired players were diagnosed posthumously by researchers at the Boston University CTE Center.
[...] This study reveals that young, amateur athletes aren't spared from the brain damage that comes with contact sports, even if they quit before going pro. And studying early-stage CTE in young, otherwise healthy brains, McKee says, "may give us clues as to how the disease is triggered." To her, the takeaway is clear: "We need to reduce the number and the strength of head impacts in contact sports. If we don't, we're going to face consequences like this."
[...] A common misconception is that a one-time impact can lead to neurodegeneration. The real problem is getting hit in the head over and over, for years and years. "A tennis player who had five concussions is not going to get CTE," says Nowinski. "There's something about getting hundreds or thousands of head impacts a year. That's what triggers it, whether you have concussion symptoms or not."
[...] But CTE is preventable. Small changes to practice drills and gameplay could make a huge difference for young athletes, says Nowinski. The playbook for prevention is simple: Reduce the number of hits to the head, and reduce the strength of those hits. Most happen during practice, so by reducing the number of drills involving head impacts and choosing ones that are less likely to cause high-magnitude blows, coaches can spare their players unnecessary danger. "You can't get rid of CTE in tackling sports," adds Nowinski, "but you can get rid of most cases of CTE."
Reducing the length of each game and the number of games per season can minimize the likelihood of head injuries, and banning brain-jostling events, like fighting in hockey or heading in soccer, can make games safer, he continues. Perhaps most importantly, youth sports leagues can raise the age at which kids are first exposed to preventable head impacts. "With tackle football before 14, the risks are not worth the benefits," Nowinski says. "You don't become a better football player from playing young." In one case study reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, transitioning from tackle to flag football would reduce a young athlete's median number of head impacts per season from 378 to eight.
But, Nowinski points out, there is no central governing body in charge of youth sports leagues, leaving it largely up to individual coaches to make changes to their practice drills and recruitment strategies. "The opportunity is right in front of our faces," says Nowinski. "I remember being told how much football makes you a leader. But right now, on this issue, there's a black hole of leadership."
McKee doesn't think that parents should take their kids out of sports—far from it. "We just need to change the rules and our thinking about these games, so that CTE isn't a consequence of playing contact sports," McKee says.
And for young athletes concerned about CTE, she urges them to seek help for mental health symptoms, build personal support systems, and keep moving forward with their lives. "Individuals like Evan need to be seen, because in all likelihood, we can treat their symptoms and help them feel less hopeless," she says. "It's not a time to despair. It's a time to come in, be evaluated, and be treated."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 14 2023, @09:50PM (7 children)
Especially if you have young people you care about who are on the fence about playing football:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concussion_(2015_film) [wikipedia.org]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday September 14 2023, @10:05PM (6 children)
I mean, it's kind of in the same vein as boxing. Sports that result in severe jarring of the brain, regularly. Just so happen to cause trauma to your brain. Go figure. Though it is quite interesting that helmets don't seem to help enough. I imagine that better helmets have generally helped in the safety of football, but I kind of wonder if it's had a net negative. I.E. We have better safety gear, so bigger and harder tackles are fine. Which could possibly be leading to more head trauma, instead of less?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Informative) by krishnoid on Thursday September 14 2023, @10:51PM
The problem is that modern helmets do their job perfectly [theguardian.com]. In doing that job, they move towards weaponization, against a part of the body that can't be protected without inertic compensation [schlockmercenary.com] (see note). A friend drew an analogy to shaken baby syndrome [mayoclinic.org] in the case of soldiers who survive explosions. This also explains why there are no external traumatic wounds or injuries for such football players.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 14 2023, @10:58PM (2 children)
Bottom line: it's bad, and the sport has been suppressing the research and results of research for decades. The more research that does come out, the worse the picture gets.
The results of the research are the results of how the game is actually played, whatever equipment they are using isn't helping - maybe it would be worse with less capable equipment, but that's like saying you're worse off in a highway collision with a pickup truck if you are riding a unicycle rather than a motorcycle - long term contact football playing, you're hosed either way - the best possible helmets won't fix the problem, unless they are so heavy that the players can't hold their head off the bench and so never make contact on the field.
Anybody who's not in denial about "how great the game is" already knows: their favorite players get walked off the field, checked for concussion, held out of play for some period of time. They tell themselves that it heals, but even after "healing" there is long term cumulative damage. The damage manifests in different ways in different people, but it's frequently very bad in later life, and never a good thing.
If we feel that sending our young men and women into harm's way to enforce national political policy makes them heroes when they come back with TBI, PTSD, missing limbs, and in body bags, that's one thing. Putting young people on a path of years of chronic TBI exposure because they have a tiny chance of appearing on national television weekly for a few years? It's past time to find another way to celebrate team play.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Friday September 15 2023, @01:31PM (1 child)
No equipment is going to prevent your brain from banging around inside your skull when you're hit with a 350lb object.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 15 2023, @04:29PM
It's pretty much the same problem as being in a vehicle crash. If the players would wear inflated airbags (or 6" foam pads) so that the collisions had "energy absorbing deformation zones" that limited maximum Gs experienced during the collision, that would help. But Rugby players already call American Football players out as sissies for wearing all the pads they do wear, and rightly so IMO. We evolved without body armor and helmets, we actually take pretty good care of ourselves whilst not wearing it, but this idea of "we've both got helmets on, lets run full speed at each other and butt heads" - h. sapiens do not have woodpecker type padding in their cranium.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tekk on Friday September 15 2023, @03:02AM (1 child)
There's some thought about equipment making both sports less safe, weirdly enough. We don't seem to see the same rates in rugby, it's speculated because, quite simply, you can't hit people as hard without the padding. Similarly before boxing gloves were introduced my understanding is that head blows were relatively rare because when you punch someone's skull there's a good chance that you break a finger.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 15 2023, @10:33AM
Yeah, the equipment nearly stops all the superficial injuries that give bloody skin tears, broken bones etc., and enables the athletes to give themselves more inertial injuries, particularly in the brain, also retinal detachment in boxers.
"Real men" would play nearly naked on the field and take their bruises, abrasions and cuts as they happen, and likely call foul when those injuries happen as well.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Thursday September 14 2023, @10:59PM (3 children)
In high school we played soccer and were expected to hit the ball with our head. I did that once, got a huge headache, thought "ya know, that can't be good for me", and never did another header.
I'm amazed we don't see soccer players listed as often as football players and boxers.
Bad decisions, great stories
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday September 15 2023, @12:39AM
It's uncommon, but does happen [nih.gov]. Soccer balls aren't entirely incompressible, but combine speed and repetition and you can probably notice damage happening over time. Now that you mention it, though -- looks like results of computational simulations were published in 2017 (also for motorcycle helmet impacts) [nih.gov] and in 2022 [nih.gov], and one study on soldiers and athletes [llnl.gov], but that's all I could find. Seems sparse.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 15 2023, @11:46AM (1 child)
High school soccer (gym class, not league play) trashed my knee - for life. I can still walk and climb stairs, but I lost the ability to bicycle any distance or time about 5 years ago, and it has been on this steady decline since the high school injury. There have always been surgical options, but every time I look at people who have actually had the surgery, they have long periods (like 6 months and more) where the surgery puts them in a worse condition that I currently am, and after 6 months of therapy I think most people just say "oh, yeah, it's so much better, I'm done with therapy" and any rational comparisons with their pre-surgical state are highly colored by the prolonged suffering of post-surgery.
Bottom line: kids are assholes, high school gym teachers are apathetic and lazy, and injuries have real consequences. I never ventured into football, but I can imagine a LOT of injuries are shrugged off by kids who don't want to appear weak, coaches who don't want to admit they are really hurting their kids, parents who think their kids "have a real future in football," etc. Brain injuries most of all: hard to diagnose, really hard to judge the severity of, and extremely easy for players to hide.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2023, @02:56PM
Somewhat similar knee problems here too, but from going out in 9th grade for cross country (running). I wasn't fast enough for the coach to pay attention to my form, which must have been terrible. I hurt a knee badly enough that I don't dare run any distance anymore. Training in flats (shoes with nearly no padding) couldn't have helped either. No more high school sports for me.
However, cycling avoids my knee problem, so I do have that for aerobic exercise. Only reason for this I've been able to come up with is that I kept my 20" single-speed kids bike longer than most--by adding an extender to raise the seat for my leg length. Without thinking about it at the time I managed to teach myself how to spin quickly & smoothly without toe clips, in that low gear...while keeping up with neighbor kids on multi-speed bikes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 14 2023, @11:19PM (9 children)
Rugby players already think we're a bunch of sissy wankers.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2023, @11:27PM (8 children)
There's your problem, right there, Runaway--
"What do you care what other people think?"
https://www.google.com/books/edition/What_Do_You_Care_What_Other_People_Think/vbMIlkpQXEkC [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 15 2023, @12:03AM (7 children)
I could answer that in a number of ways. I'll stick to a more general response: if people don't respect you, you can't be a leader. The US claims to be a world leader, right? But, we go on and on, proving in ever more ways that we're a bunch of cunts. Have I triggered anyone? I hope so. Maybe if I trigger them enough, they'll stop being cunts.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ChrisMaple on Friday September 15 2023, @12:42AM (5 children)
What's your hatred toward women, and why do you use such rude language? You're not making the world a better place.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 15 2023, @01:58AM (2 children)
Start with this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EY7lYRneHc [youtube.com]
Now enjoy this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EY7lYRneHc [youtube.com]
Triggered, are you? How easily manipulable you are. Half the English speaking world 'gets it', but you don't.
Better that you explain your fear of women, and why you shrink from a word in common use around the world.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2023, @02:08AM (1 child)
What sort of person posts the same link twice...?
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 15 2023, @02:16AM
My bad. Try this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6geV5ph96bk [youtube.com] for the second link.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2023, @02:00AM
Hey Einstein, cunts ≠ women.
Why are you so quick to make that assumption, then attack Runaway with your made up lie?
Agreed on the unnecessary rudeness.
90% of what comes out of liberals is rude attacks. That disease is spreading.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 16 2023, @02:47AM
Oh - I just remembered another vidya. Go to Youtube, and search Ted Talk + cunt - Scottish lady does the talk. And, no, she's not a comedian.
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 2) by mrpg on Friday September 15 2023, @03:06AM
Welcome to the FBI watchlist :-))
BTW, I wanted to see fbi.gov but I couldn't, I had to use a vpn to connect to the US.
(Score: 4, Funny) by EJ on Thursday September 14 2023, @11:30PM (1 child)
If you hit your head with a DJI Osmo, you can get a concussion too.
/didnotreadarticle
(Score: 3, Interesting) by everdred on Friday September 15 2023, @06:17PM
I know this was just a joke, but it's a real weakness of title-casing headlines. Putting every word in caps makes it hard to tell what is or isn't a proper noun, lowering the "resolution" of the info.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday September 15 2023, @01:25AM (2 children)
Maybe do a sport that doesn't involve getting hundreds of thousands of head impacts a year?
There are some sports I chose never to do when I was a kid and I started practicing, such as football, rugby, boxing or diving, because it doesn't take a genius to realize they're detrimental to the health.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday September 15 2023, @03:01AM (1 child)
One nitpick. I agree with Football, Rugby and Boxing, but I don't believe that Diving contributes to CTE. This is because the diver breaks the surface of the water with their hands ahead of their head, so the head's entry into the water is pretty mild. Obviously a bad dive may result in harder impact, but it's rare and not an expected part of the sport in the way that football tackles are.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12734072/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday September 15 2023, @05:23AM
That's a relief. I used to dive all the time when I was younger. Our pool had 1 and 3m boards but I hardly ever used them. I'd go 2 or 3 steps to get momentum and dive out over the deep end of the lanes. Back then it was perfectly acceptable to do that as long as the lane markers weren't up. I have a feeling they just ban all diving except for the boards now. The 2 or 3 steps was to get around the "no running" rule. Even back then, running was verboten. Oh and I was on the team for a couple seasons and of course you dive to start a race.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday September 15 2023, @10:24AM
I can't find the article now but there are many law suits going through in UK. Professional rugby players are very likely to suffer dementia in later life. Note that head impacts are explicitly banned in rugby (no helmets of course), but nonetheless there is an issue.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday September 15 2023, @10:27AM
Over the years I've kept getting asked "Are you scared of the ball?"
Turns out I was right all along. Yeah of course I'm scared of the ball. It can cause me lasting damage if I don't get out of the way quickly.
Consumerism is poison.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2023, @01:19PM
Anecdotal evidence:
Eighth grade...Phys Ed class...softball game...little johnny was playing short stop and turned to shout at the second base man...a line drive hit him in the temple...he died instantly...memorials were held.
True story.