NFL: Trauma-Related Cognitive Issues Likely To Affect One-Fourth Of All Players

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Documents filed by lawyers representing the National Football League (NFL) acknowledge that at least one-fourth of players are likely to wind up suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease or other cognitive impairments after their careers are over, various media outlets are reporting.
According to Reuters reporter Brendan O’Brien, the filing is a summary of the results of an actuarial study which it had commissioned. They were submitted to the US District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania on Friday as part of the league’s ongoing legal battle with retired players suffering medical problems associated with repeated blows to the head.
The report, which was compiled by the New York-based Segal Group at the NFL’s behest, concluded that 28 percent of the league’s “overall player population,” as well as one-third of the 5,000 retired players that are the plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit against the organization, will be diagnosed with cognitive impairments during their lifetime.
The chances of professional football players dealing these issues “are materially higher than those expected in the general population,” the lawyers’ summary of the research said, adding that the athletes will develop these diagnoses “at notably younger ages than the general population.” O’Brien said the study “appears to be the most definitive statement the NFL has yet made on the dangers of the sometimes violent sport.”
Likewise, Ken Belson of the New York Times said the documents are “the league’s most unvarnished admission yet that the sport’s professional participants sustain severe brain injuries at far higher rates than the general population,” and that the study’s results “appear to confirm what scientists have said for years: that playing football increases the risk of developing neurological conditions.”
The concussion and head-injury issues in professional football players have been well documented, though in June, in-depth neurological examinations of 45 retired NFL players between the ages of 30 and 60 reportedly found that chronic brain damage was less prevalent in the former athletes than previously believed.
That study used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) along with comprehensive neuropsychological and neurological examinations, interviews, blood tests and APOE (apolipoprotein E) genotyping and found that while there were isolated impairments in 11 of the patients, none of the players suffered from dementia, dysarthria, Parkinson’s Disease or cerebellar dysfunction.
“Our results indicated that there were brain lesions and cognitive impairments in some of the players; however the majority of the individuals in our study had no clinical signs of chronic brain damage to the degree that has been noted in previous studies,” explained lead author Dr. Ira R. Casson, a neurologist at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center and the Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, both located in New York.
However, the new statement filed on behalf of the league “clears up all the confusion and doubt manufactured over the years questioning the link between brain trauma and long-term neurological impairment,” Chris Nowinski, the executive director of the Sports Legacy Institute and a longtime advocate of research into sports-related brain trauma, told the New York Times on Friday. “We have come a long way since the days of outright denial.”
Nowinski added that the number of former players who are expected to develop dementia or similar cognitive ailments is “staggering,” adding that the total does not even account for ex-players who go on to develop mood and/or behavior disorders or die prior to developing the cognitive symptoms associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain condition that can only be identified during an autopsy.
Brad Karp, an attorney representing the NFL, told Belson that the actuaries based their research on the medical diagnoses reported by the former players who had filed the lawsuit, thus inflating the findings of the study. Karp also told Reuters that the Segal study is not a prediction of the number of players that will suffer such injuries, only to demonstrate that the league would have enough money to pay all claims if that many injuries did occur.
“In 2013, the NFL agreed to pay more than $760 million to settle a lawsuit brought by more than 4,500 former players who had sued the league, accusing it of hiding the dangers of brain injury while profiting from the sport’s violence,” O’Brien said. In June, the league lifted a $675 million cap on payments to former players, and commissioned the Segal Group report to ensure that the money set aside for the claims would be sufficient, he added.
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