Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Study Reveals Brain Injury In 43 Percent Of US Ex-football Players


Some 43 percent of retired American football players studied show signs of traumatic brain injury, raising new concerns about the long-term effects of hitting and tackling, researchers said Monday, according to AFP. The study involved 40 retired National Football League (NFL) players, who underwent thinking and
memory tests as well as brain scans.
Said study author Francis Conidi of the Florida State University College of Medicine:  "This is one of the largest studies to date in living retired NFL players and one of the first to demonstrate significant objective evidence for traumatic brain injury in these former players. The rate of traumatic brain injury was significantly higher in the players than that found in the general population."
The players ranged in age from 27 to 56 and played an average of seven years in the league. Most had been out of the NFL for fewer than five years. They reported an average of eight concussions. Around a third of the players said they had sustained several hits that were not strong enough to be diagnosed as concussions.
The findings, based on sensitive MRI scans called diffusion tensor imaging, were released ahead of a presentation at the American Academy of Neurology's 68th Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The advanced MRI scans measured the movement of water molecules in the brain's white matter -- which controls how the brain functions -- to determine the amount of damage. "Seventeen players, or 43 percent, had levels of movement 2.5 standard deviations below those of healthy people of the same age, which is considered evidence of traumatic brain injury with a less than one percent error rate," the study said. 


No comments: