NFL Retired Players Suffering from Brain Disorders Study Shows
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Yet another study has revealed that many retired professional players of the U.S. National Football League (NFL) are suffering from brain disorders due to repeated head trauma.
The study was conducted by Dr. Adam Hampshire from the Imperial College, London. They scanned the brains of 60 participants who never played American-style football and compared them with 13 retirees from the NFL.
The tests were ran by David Hubbard of the Applied fMRI Institute based in San Diego, California. Initially, they started with 15 NFL retirees however two could not fit into the fMRI machine due to their large size.
It was revealed in the tests that the football players had more difficulty when it came to counting, memory recall, planning, cognition, and spatial awareness.
They also found that the players had a decrease in the efficiency of their frontal cortex. The frontal cortex is important for an individual’s ability to plan and reason.
The tests establish a relationship between repeated head trauma and reduced brain efficiency later on in life.
These findings not only raise concerns for the safety and welfare of NFL players but also for parents whose children play the game in youth leagues and on into college to play the sport.
However it is unlikely that youth, college, and professional football will see a drop in players of the game because the sport is deeply rooted in American culture.
Thus, some companies such as MC10 Electronics of Boston have been working on solutions to try and minimize the damage from head trauma by warning when an event is too much.
The electronics company developed a skullcap in partnership with the sportswear company Reebok that it named the CheckLight. The CheckLight senses when a blow to the head exceeds the danger threshold thus signaling that the player should sit the next few plays or the game out. It also signals that a player should be monitored after a serious blow.
Youth leagues such as the Wayland-Weston Youth Football team located in Massachusetts have already put the device to use and continue to do so.
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