We have known that
2015年2月25日Rugby could be on a collision course
There’s not trouble at mill. There might be down the track, though. Big trouble the sort that sounds hysterical and fanciful now but in 20 years might be unavoidable. Might be a bit too real.
Rugby has a potential ticking time bomb a generation of professional rugby players and more to come who could be facing debilitating and severe post career health issues related to multiple head knocks.
The latest injury surveillance project out of the English Premiership shows that for the second consecutive year, concussion was the most prevalent injury. There were 54 concussions on match days during the 2012 13 season and another five in training.
The severity is more contentious and harder to measure. Until recently, the weight of medical opinion and limited research in the field has supported the view that there is no accumulative effect in relation to concussion.
There is consensus that playing with concussion is highly dangerous but divided views on whether picking up several head knocks in a career makes an athlete more prone to mental health and related conditions later in life.
In the past few years, the body of evidence has grown to challenge the established view. A successful class action has been mounted in the United wholesale jerseys States by former American footballers against the NFL.
More than 4500 former players have joined Jeff Teague Authentic Jersey the suit among them, some of the biggest stars of the game. Some of the plaintiffs have suffered early on set of dementia, some have Lou Gehrig’s disease, while more tragically there have been suicides of former players, linked to depression caused by repeated concussions.
Rugby hasn’t seen or discovered a similar volume of troubled players, but there have been a few.
Former All Black halfback Steve Devine is one; he was forced to Wholesale Handbags retire at 30 when he couldn’t recover from a concussion, one of about between 30 and 40 he reckons he may have suffered.
His immediate retirement was dogged by severe headaches and lethargy. He struggled to cope with background noise and toughest of all was finding the energy to be the type of father he wanted to be for his young children.
"I have treatment now and if I look after myself, I am 100 per cent," he says. "I have endured an extensive amount of testing and my results are looking as good as they ever were and I’m now a full time professional fire fighter. I’m a very fit, competent individual but as to what my future holds . no one knows.
"I have concerns. There are reports that say it [multiple concussions] will be all good and other reports saying they won’t be good. I’m not sitting around crying about it but all I know is it is too late for me. I don’t get caught up in it," says Devine.
Former All Black halfback Steve Devine was forced to retire at 30 when he couldn’t recover from a concussion.
The battle to prevent it from destroying the game and people’s lives is complex and, Cheap Wholesale Sunglasses at the moment, across two distinct fronts.
Progress has been made and continues to be made on one front; in New Zealand, at the professional level, the management of players with concussion is exemplary. There is robust testing; there is, by and large, no overt or covert pressure applied by coaches to get players back on the field before they’re ready and the seriousness of the condition is respected and duly acknowledged.
It’s not perfect but, hand on heart, New Zealand can say its athletes are among the best managed after they suffer a concussion.
What is becoming increasingly apparent, however, is that when it comes to understanding and researching the possible longer term health implications for those players who suffer repeated concussions, more needs to be done.
While the Rugby Football Union helps fund the annual surveillance report into Premiership injuries, there is no such centralised or co ordinated collection of data in Super Rugby.
Most New Zealand medics linked to Super Rugby sides collect information on squad injuries but that’s mostly a recent practice so there is little cohesive, historic data around head knocks.
AUT has been commissioned by the IRB and New Zealand Rugby Union to study how well the brain connects with the body in retired contact sport athletes compared with those who didn’t play contact sport. But the project has struggled to find enough subjects and may not be able to deliver meaningful results as a consequence.
NZRU medical director Dr Ian Murphy says the difficulty of conducting research is nike nfl jerseys china significant given the variables that may contribute to longer term conditions.
"Is there any other factor that contributes to this [long term effects of concussions]? We don’t know: there might be issues such as binge drinking, or performance enhancing drugs or underlying mental health issues.
"What we would like is a long term, nationwide study where we are able to control a whole set of variables. I think we need a partner for this and we are talking to ACC."
The need to understand more about the possible long term effects is critical.
"Why is the brain different from the other organs? I don’t think it is," says Blues medic Dr Steve Kara. "But we don’t have the evidence where we can firmly stand there and say it [long term damage] definitely happens. We think it happens but we need the research in rugby to be able to definitely say. But look, I think all of us are moving towards the point where we are pretty sure it does have an impact in the future and our management has to be with that in mind knowing that the evidence hasn’t really caught up in rugby yet."
Last year, the first rugby specific evidence emerged. http://www.authentichawksshop.com/Al_Horford_Jersey Glasgow based neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart revealed that he had found evidence of a former rugby player suffering from early on set dementia.
"We have known that in boxing for instance repeatedly injuring your brain can read to a syndrome, punch drunk syndrome, and you can imagine what that is," Dr Stewart told the BBC. "The pathology of that is better classified as dementia pugilistica and we kind of assumed it was only boxing related and you had to be exposed to a lot of concussive injuries. But what we’re seeing here and in America is that it’s happening in other sports where athletes are exposed to head injury in high levels. Those sports include American football, ice hockey and now I’ve seen a case in a person whose exposure was rugby."
Devine is probably indicative of the prevailing view of players of his generation; he doesn’t hold anyone responsible for his predicament. He is confident the medical advice he was given was the best available at the time. The doctors who treated him acted on what they knew. But despite concussion testing and mandatory education, rugby’s governing bodies can’t leave themselves open to accusations they haven’t been proactive in determining the longer term impacts of head knocks.
There’s not trouble at mill. There might be down the track, though. Big trouble the sort that sounds hysterical and fanciful now but in 20 years might be unavoidable. Might be a bit too real.
Rugby has a potential ticking time bomb a generation of professional rugby players and more to come who could be facing debilitating and severe post career health issues related to multiple head knocks.
The latest injury surveillance project out of the English Premiership shows that for the second consecutive year, concussion was the most prevalent injury. There were 54 concussions on match days during the 2012 13 season and another five in training.
The severity is more contentious and harder to measure. Until recently, the weight of medical opinion and limited research in the field has supported the view that there is no accumulative effect in relation to concussion.
There is consensus that playing with concussion is highly dangerous but divided views on whether picking up several head knocks in a career makes an athlete more prone to mental health and related conditions later in life.
In the past few years, the body of evidence has grown to challenge the established view. A successful class action has been mounted in the United wholesale jerseys States by former American footballers against the NFL.
More than 4500 former players have joined Jeff Teague Authentic Jersey the suit among them, some of the biggest stars of the game. Some of the plaintiffs have suffered early on set of dementia, some have Lou Gehrig’s disease, while more tragically there have been suicides of former players, linked to depression caused by repeated concussions.
Rugby hasn’t seen or discovered a similar volume of troubled players, but there have been a few.
Former All Black halfback Steve Devine is one; he was forced to Wholesale Handbags retire at 30 when he couldn’t recover from a concussion, one of about between 30 and 40 he reckons he may have suffered.
His immediate retirement was dogged by severe headaches and lethargy. He struggled to cope with background noise and toughest of all was finding the energy to be the type of father he wanted to be for his young children.
"I have treatment now and if I look after myself, I am 100 per cent," he says. "I have endured an extensive amount of testing and my results are looking as good as they ever were and I’m now a full time professional fire fighter. I’m a very fit, competent individual but as to what my future holds . no one knows.
"I have concerns. There are reports that say it [multiple concussions] will be all good and other reports saying they won’t be good. I’m not sitting around crying about it but all I know is it is too late for me. I don’t get caught up in it," says Devine.
Former All Black halfback Steve Devine was forced to retire at 30 when he couldn’t recover from a concussion.
The battle to prevent it from destroying the game and people’s lives is complex and, Cheap Wholesale Sunglasses at the moment, across two distinct fronts.
Progress has been made and continues to be made on one front; in New Zealand, at the professional level, the management of players with concussion is exemplary. There is robust testing; there is, by and large, no overt or covert pressure applied by coaches to get players back on the field before they’re ready and the seriousness of the condition is respected and duly acknowledged.
It’s not perfect but, hand on heart, New Zealand can say its athletes are among the best managed after they suffer a concussion.
What is becoming increasingly apparent, however, is that when it comes to understanding and researching the possible longer term health implications for those players who suffer repeated concussions, more needs to be done.
While the Rugby Football Union helps fund the annual surveillance report into Premiership injuries, there is no such centralised or co ordinated collection of data in Super Rugby.
Most New Zealand medics linked to Super Rugby sides collect information on squad injuries but that’s mostly a recent practice so there is little cohesive, historic data around head knocks.
AUT has been commissioned by the IRB and New Zealand Rugby Union to study how well the brain connects with the body in retired contact sport athletes compared with those who didn’t play contact sport. But the project has struggled to find enough subjects and may not be able to deliver meaningful results as a consequence.
NZRU medical director Dr Ian Murphy says the difficulty of conducting research is nike nfl jerseys china significant given the variables that may contribute to longer term conditions.
"Is there any other factor that contributes to this [long term effects of concussions]? We don’t know: there might be issues such as binge drinking, or performance enhancing drugs or underlying mental health issues.
"What we would like is a long term, nationwide study where we are able to control a whole set of variables. I think we need a partner for this and we are talking to ACC."
The need to understand more about the possible long term effects is critical.
"Why is the brain different from the other organs? I don’t think it is," says Blues medic Dr Steve Kara. "But we don’t have the evidence where we can firmly stand there and say it [long term damage] definitely happens. We think it happens but we need the research in rugby to be able to definitely say. But look, I think all of us are moving towards the point where we are pretty sure it does have an impact in the future and our management has to be with that in mind knowing that the evidence hasn’t really caught up in rugby yet."
Last year, the first rugby specific evidence emerged. http://www.authentichawksshop.com/Al_Horford_Jersey Glasgow based neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart revealed that he had found evidence of a former rugby player suffering from early on set dementia.
"We have known that in boxing for instance repeatedly injuring your brain can read to a syndrome, punch drunk syndrome, and you can imagine what that is," Dr Stewart told the BBC. "The pathology of that is better classified as dementia pugilistica and we kind of assumed it was only boxing related and you had to be exposed to a lot of concussive injuries. But what we’re seeing here and in America is that it’s happening in other sports where athletes are exposed to head injury in high levels. Those sports include American football, ice hockey and now I’ve seen a case in a person whose exposure was rugby."
Devine is probably indicative of the prevailing view of players of his generation; he doesn’t hold anyone responsible for his predicament. He is confident the medical advice he was given was the best available at the time. The doctors who treated him acted on what they knew. But despite concussion testing and mandatory education, rugby’s governing bodies can’t leave themselves open to accusations they haven’t been proactive in determining the longer term impacts of head knocks.
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