Why my crucial research must continue
DR WILLIE STEWART WARNS HARD WORK CAN’T GO TO WASTE
DOCTOR Willie Stewart was frustrated when we first spoke yesterday. The man whose FIELD study has so far managed to slightly lift the giant boulder that is dementia in footballers — allowing him and his team to take a peek underneath — was concerned that all his work would come to an end in March.
The Scot believed funding, which had come f rom the Football Association and Professional Footballers’ Association, was to be stopped when he needed to carry on for at least another two years.
Dr Stewart was bracing himself for a day when he would enter his office at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, switch off his laptop and turn the lights out in the lab.
The study, which delivered the l andmark finding that former professional footballers were 3.5 times more likely to die from neurodegenerative disease than the general population, was set to come to a premature end.
The boulder was to drop to the ground, with arguably the most important work ever done in this area terminated.
Then s o methi n g strange happened. The £ 250,000 Dr Stewart required for the next two years was part of Sportsmail’s c ampaign. At 1 . 5 3 pm, t hi s newspaper contacted the PFA, as was right, to make them aware of the details of our campaign and to ask them for a response.
At 6.02pm, we were sent a statement from the PFA which claimed funding had been agreed. It was news to Dr Stewart. The players’ union then tweeted many of the points made in their lengthy statement. As if by magic ( or email), the concerns that Dr Stewart had harboured for months were apparently lifted.
It should not come as a surprise. The money Dr Stewart needed represents an eighth of PFA chief Gordon Taylor’s salary. Around £100,000 less than Taylor pays his finance director. It is money they can find in, say, a matter of hours.
Regardless, this is good news. It appeared to be a victory for the campaign before its first words were printed. A key victory.
‘Losing the momentum we had would have been unthinkable,’ said Dr Stewart, who was last night still waiting for the news to be relayed to him by the PFA — a cashrich organisation in comparison to their counterparts in this country, PFA Scotland. ‘It’s marvellous. It allows us to carry on. If we are allowed to keep this going, the future looks bright. This has been hanging over us for a year.’
The importance of another two years cannot be overstated. ‘There is a way of trying to unlock this,’ he said. ‘I think (by the end of the two years) we should know the changing face of the disease — whether there is any sign that it is getting better in younger generations, getting worse or staying the same.’
Dr Stewart and Co are now ready to extend the study to those born in 1990 after examining those aged 40 and above. Modern footballers. To finally end the old leather ball argument if they have not done so already. But there is more.
‘We might find a way of looking at brain scans that may spot football-associated problems and may even be something that could be used in retired footballers to say there may be problems ahead,’ he said. Tell-tale signs could be treated.
‘Prevention is better than cure,’ explained Dr Stewart. ‘We need to focus attention on finding people who are at risk and stopping it happening or slowing it down. By the time people get dementia, their brains are so badly damaged. We would hope to go to living footballers and say to them: “Here are things you can do to reduce your risk”. We can be aggressive on blood-pressure management, on stopping smoking, changing diet, exercise and all the things we know which modify the risk.’
Understandably, Dr Stewart did not want all the good work to go to waste. ‘It took us three years to develop interrogation analysis methods,’ he said. ‘Living, breathing codes. That process is now up and running. We can do so much more — but this is not a project you can switch on and off. If we flicked the switch, then the code dies.
‘If we didn’t roll through, it could take four to five years to get back to where we are.’
Dr Stewart is backing Sportsmail’s campaign. It is he who has guided on the science behind our call for regulation surrounding heading in training.
‘Data shows if you test brain function, memory and how quickly electrical signals pass from the brain, and then head the ball 20 times and test again, your memory has been affected, your speed of brain signal has been slowed,’ he said. ‘It seems to take 24 hours to recover. That’s the logic — 48 hours (of rest) to be safe.
‘Some people have done tests where they took blood samples from people who had headed the ball 30 times and detected brain proteins floating in the blood. These proteins should not be there. Maybe as the research goes forward they find if you head 20 balls on a Monday and 20 on a Wednesday, the 20 on Wednesday produce more of an effect because the brain not fully recovered.
‘You had (Chelsea’s) Thiago Silva recently saying he was leaving the pitch with headaches after coming to play in England — if that’s not an indicator there’s a problem, I don’t know what else you need.’
Dr Stewart also supports the call for the players’ unions to bring in a team of dementia specialists with a designated helpline.
‘Footballers, former athletes with dementia have unique challenges,’ he said. ‘The challenge is greater with these active men. This is a unique population. It needs people with particularly insight.’
Dr Stewart believes those on the team could play a vital role. ‘They could say to relatives: “This is how you might want to deal with it”.’
He is also behi nd more investment in respite. ‘There is something that exists called Football Memories,’ he explained. ‘They are events which are often based at stadiums. The players with dementia are with people who have a shared interest. Props such as pictures stimulate the memory, they become alive. Their families feel like they have them back. You can see them argue over who was best. It wouldn’t cost much to extend it.
‘There comes a time where a few hours away is needed to clear the head for families and recharge the batteries. Their behaviour can be very challenging and giving family a break from that is huge.’
Dr Stewart is not a man for insults. He made his points calmly and with reason. ‘This cannot stop here,’ he said, before the later development with the PFA. Thankfully, it appears as though now it will not.