Don’t left football fears go to your head warns FA doctor
FOOTBALL REMAINS years behind rugby when it comes to dealing with concussion but parents have little to fear over their children playing the game, according to a leading neurologist who advises the Football Association.
Dr Richard Sylvester said recent calls to ban under-11s from heading the ball was based on flawed research. US Soccer has introduced a ban for children over fears of concussion and head injuries, but far more research needs to be carried out before any “drastic” changes are made here, he said.
“There seems to be a small proportion of people who played football who have these changes in their brain,” said Dr Sylvester. “The trouble is we don’t really know what the cause is yet. The assumption is it’s repeated brain injuries.”
In NFL and rugby it’s potentially easier to understand than football, because they have concussions relatively frequently.
“I see lots of rugby players with brain injuries. I don’t see many footballers. That may reflect the fact it is underdiagnosed, but all the studies suggest it’s much less frequent.
“Players are not on the floor getting boots in the head.
“There is a concern that heading the ball frequently causes minor damage that accrues over time, but there’s no real evidence of that.”
The issue of whether footballers were, or are, at increased risk of dementia or other brain injuries has been highlighted in a campaign by the family of former West Bromwich Albion player Jeff Astle.
The ex-England striker died in 2002, aged 59, suffering from early onset dementia, which a coroner found was caused by heading heavy footballs and gave the cause of death as “industrial disease”.
A subsequent re-examination of Astle’s brain found he was suffering from the neuro-degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Dr Sylvester, consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, said today’s ball is lighter than the heavier, brown version used by players of Astle’s generation.
A UCL study involving 14 former footballers, all of whom had dementia, found CTE in four of the six players they had been given permission to carry out post-mortems on. The findings, published in February, led to widespread media coverage of a “ticking timebomb” of brain injuries in football.
Stirling University research last year, looking at acute effects of repeatedly heading a ball, discovered those who did performed worse on memory tests in the following four hours and there were changes in brain activity sometimes seen after an injury.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very well-designed study, as it didn’t have a control group so it’s very difficult to know what it means,” said Dr Sylvester. “But both studies got a lot of press coverage, which led to calls for banning football in certain age groups.
“We also don’t know whether those people (such as Astle) had other injuries, there might be some individual factor. The ball itself has also changed. In Astle’s day it was much heavier.
“Before people start going for bans and changes to what is essentially a good thing, healthwise, playing sport – we really need to understand if this is an issue.”
Dr Sylvester, who has co-written the FA’s guidelines on managing concussion, is more concerned about the management of concussion and head injury in the long term. “I often get asked: ‘Would I allow my kids to play rugby or other contact sports?’ My answer is: ‘I would, but I would want to know if the medical set-up, guidelines and procedures of dealing with concussion is satisfactory.’”