Knocked out 30 times - now I’ve got dementia at age of just 40
FThe bottom line is that throughout my career I’ve had so many bangs to the head and I’ve had so much concussion ...
ORMER Bristol and England rugby international Michael Lipman has told how he is suffering the effects of mild dementia at the age of only 40 after sustaining multiple concussions during his playing career.
Lipman played two seasons for the Bristol Bears, then the Bristol Shoguns, between 2001 and 2003, before switching to Bath where he went on to stay until 2009, making more than 100 appearances in the Blue, Black and White before resigning from the club in a cloud of controversy.
Lipman, who is now 40 and back in Australia having grown up Down Under, has been working with concussion specialist Dr Rowena Mobbs of Macquarie University, who is a key figure involved with the National Repetitive Head Trauma Initiative.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, Lipman confirmed he was knocked out a staggering 30 times during his playing career which also saw him represent Waratahs and Melbourne Rebels as well as winning 10 caps for England in a 13-year professional career.
Playing with a warrior mentality which was common in the sport not so long ago, the former flanker explained he was part of a culture whereby “if I wasn’t completely knocked out, I played on”.
Michael Lipman
It is well documented that transitioning from being a professional sportsman into civilian life is one of the most difficult challenges facing rugby players, but shortly after hanging up his boots Lipman’s wife Frances quickly recognised the concussion symptoms which ended his career were not shifting. He became very forgetful, moody and could get very angry very quickly over little things.
Frances said: “Michael had a lot of cognitive tests, and he had a score of 77 out of 100, and I thought, ‘That sounds awesome...’ I looked it up, and it was actually really concerning, because it was actually at the stage of mild dementia. And I am like, wow, this is what we are dealing with, and Michael’s only 40 years old.”
In 2009, when playing for Bath, Lipman was given medical advice to retire due to concussion, but he played on for another three years before hanging up his boots.
After calling it a day in 2012 at age 32, following a season at the Rebels, he said: “The bottom line is that throughout my career I’ve had so many bangs to the head and I’ve had so much concussion ... the last couple have been the icing on the cake.
“I’ve just had too many. Enough’s enough and when your body’s talking to you like it is now, you’ve got to listen to it and be sensible because the hardest thing in anything really is to admit that your time is up and to come to terms with it.’’
Sadly Lipman is not alone in his suffering, with former Bath team mate Shontayne Hape forced to
retire at 33 back in 2013 after being left with depression, memory loss and constant migranes.
He said: “My memory was shot. The specialist explained that my brain was so traumatised, had swollen so big, that even just getting a tap to the body would knock me out. I had to retire immediately.”
Rugby has come a long way in the last decade, with World Rugby implementing harsher penalties for high tackles, with any direct contract to the head warranting a straight red card, and introducing mandatory Head Injury Assessments when a player has taken a high shot in 2015.