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Medicine Science

Rugby: Head Impact Study Shows Cognitive Decline After Just One Season (bbc.com) 47

Posted by BeauHD from the short-term-effects dept.
Researchers from the University of South Wales found that over just one season a team of professional rugby players saw a decline in blood flow to the brain and cognitive function -- the ability to reason, remember, formulate ideas and perform mental gymnastics. The paper also suggests that rather than only concussions, repetitive contacts, or sub concussions, sustained through rugby have caused the declines seen in the players. The BBC reports: Some studies suggest professional rugby players may be exposed to 11,000 contact events per season, and more research is beginning to show evidence that it may not be concussions alone that could impact the brain, but the cumulative effect and volume of contact events too. The peer reviewed University of South Wales study, which is funded by the Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellowship, recorded six concussion incidents among all the players that took part over the course of the year. However, all of those involved in the study saw a decline in blood flow to the brain and cognitive function between pre and post-season results.

Further findings include a correlation between an increase in contact amount, playing position and rate of decline on the main measures tested. The university team are also working on a similar study, comparing current players and retired players against a control group to determine whether there is a faster rate of decline in brain function in rugby players. They say more research is needed on the long term effects of such a decline. In a statement responding to the University of South Wales research, the sport's governing body World Rugby said: "World Rugby welcomes all research that can inform and support our recently launched strategy to cement rugby as the most progressive sport on player welfare. It is at the heart of everything that we say and do as a sport. World Rugby recently committed to double our investment in player welfare and new concussion research and initiatives. We are currently undertaking a wide-ranging evaluation of contact training volume across the game and look forward to the results of the ongoing Otago Rugby Community Head Impact Detection study using instrumented mouthguards, which is the largest study of playing and training head impacts in men's and women's community rugby."
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Rugby: Head Impact Study Shows Cognitive Decline After Just One Season More

Rugby: Head Impact Study Shows Cognitive Decline After Just One Season

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  • I suspect there's a massive cognitive drop that happens right before someone decides to professionally play rugby. The decision predicates upon it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jools33 ( 252092 )

      That would be why there are teams of doctors playing for example, as they are famously totally uneducated... https://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-... [ucl.ac.uk]

      • Re:Found the bigger cognitive drop... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by The Real Dr John ( 716876 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @06:34AM (#61751483) Homepage

        Any doctor who plays sports that involve head injuries is an idiot, even if they got an expensive education. I work on ways to treat brain damage, and the key to avoiding brain damage is to make sure you don't get repeat injuries in a short time frame. That is why boxing and football are so harmful to the brain. The degree of permanent damage escalates dramatically if multiple small concussions occur over a short period of time. Once you get hit in the head even once, you need to stop any contact sport for at least several weeks to allow healing.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jools33 ( 252092 )

          I am inclined to agree with you, after much more experience with the after affects of rugby, from friends that used to play. The sport needs far more controls than are currently in place. It is like the unions who are in charge, are not interested in addressing the core issues, and I think as a result the sport will decline.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by RobinH ( 124750 )
        Well, my doctor has apparently had every ailment that any of his patients have ever had, and then some. Doctors aren't some magically inhuman perfect being. They drink, eat unhealthy foods, etc.
  • To make Rugby a safer sport. Ever since then it got less and less safe as they introduce more and more safety rules.
    • That's the comment of someone who was never in a scrum in the 1980's. Scrums are way safer now.

    • Like boxing, where wearing gloves makes it much more dangerous because they let punch at craniums for hours without hurting your hands.

  • Facebook/Instagram influencers are even worse (Score:5, Funny)

    by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Tuesday August 31, 2021 @10:00PM (#61750643)

    according to some study I read last night.
    Their cognative reflexes detoriarate so fast that the only reflex their brain supports is taking a selfie with over-exaggerated puckered lips.

    • That's just sexual dimorphism -- you're talking about females of the same species as handegg players.

  • World Rugby welcomes all research that can inform and support our recently launched strategy to cement rugby as the most progressive sport on player welfare.

    Leave it to the Rugby governing body to use the word "cement" in their commentary about head injuries. :-)

  • what you never had much of, to start with.

  • Wut?! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Arethan ( 223197 )

    Smush head don make smurt??

    No shit. How is this still "news"?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 )

      No shit. How is this still "news"?

      It's news because this study confirms a key Nerd assumption.

    • No shit. How is this still "news"?

      It's not "still" news. The news here (for those of us who didn't play rugby and read at least TFS) is the rate of this effect. If you know already everything in TFS why didn't you publish your study on it?

    • Re:Wut?! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @04:31AM (#61751297)

      No shit. How is this still "news"?

      While CTE is over a century old, the cause from sports is relatively recent, being written about after the turn of the millennium. You might remember a movie called Concussion which details the efforts of the NFL to try to discredit the pathologist who discovered it in players.

      For those not well versed in sports, the NFL is one of the largest, most popular leagues around, and thus have a lot of money and power. Having CTE discovered in players means big trouble for them since American Football has a lot of that going on. And like things like climate change, smoking, lead in gasoline, this sort of thing is disastrous for an industry.

      CTE can only be diagnosed post-mortem. We're discovering new things all the time about it, and things you think might work, like helmets, might offer far less protection than imagined. Right now the belief is simply that any exposure to things where heads are colliding into things causes CTE, and the end result is cumulative. But we don't know how much (it requires a brain autopsy to actually diagnose the extent of it) is allowable.

      We know those who make a career of running into things will likely have severe cases, but how severe is severe? Can it be mitigated with even better helmet design?

      Modern sports have concussion protocols these days where even if a concussion is suspected the player must rest of a few days to a few weeks to try to lessen the effects - no longer can we just ask if the player can get up and continue play.

      And then there are kids - how bad are youth football/hackey/etc games?

      Information is still rather thin because data is hard to come by. We don't want to get rid of these kinds of sports, after all, NFL is popular, and we probably can't make them touch only, but we also don't want to turn them into mass murderers because of a bad hit.

      The only data we do have is any hit is bad, but that's not really all that scientific - how bad must a hit be? If I bump my head on something? What about motorcyclists who hit their head?

      So yes, we know you hit your head you will experience damage. But how much is too much? What about everyday activities? What kind of protection can we use? (Most helmets offer little protection or protection in the wrong areas).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      What would be news to a lot of people is how little time it takes. Yeah, we know about boxers and football players who have brain damage after an entire career, but it certainly is news that it's measurable after a single *season*.

      Get some "silken tofu" from the market and put it on a plate. You can "cut" it with your fingers, and if you try to pick it up it will fall apart. That's about the same consistency as the human brain. It's miraculous that traumatic brain injuries aren't more common, but the bra

  • That didnt even show significant change.

    Scoentific reports should not be reported until their results are significant and reproduced. .

    • Not reported by the useless BBC:

      "The study’s authors did also acknowledge limitations in the research, notably that the cognitive tests had found a one point reduction which did not meet the usual three-point “reliable change index” threshold"

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ru... [telegraph.co.uk]

  • I always thought you'd have to have some cognitive problems already to consider playing that sport.

  • Remember that your intellegence du jour is very dependent on the intelligence of those around you.

    Walking grunting beer containers might not be ideal. ;)

  • As an ex amateur rugby player (Score:3)

    by jools33 ( 252092 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2021 @05:53AM (#61751409)

    I played rugby union from about the age of 6 until 24, when I was 24 I got a bad knee injury, and my surgeon at the time highly recommended I hang up my boots. Rugby is a game I love with a passion, but I can also say that it is not one that I will now push my son towards, given the injury situations we find ourselves with today.
    Rugby has a long way to go on this subject and especially at the professional level, but additionally at all levels from the grass-roots up.
    Watching a pro-game, barely a game goes by where there is not some form of HIA (Head Injury Assessment), more and more retired professionals are coming forwards with Early onset Alzheimer symptoms, some players return again and again after repeated concussion injuries. The game of rugby union, since it went professional, has focused on beefing up players, and so the days when there were small mercurial players playing are fading away into history. Then the hits at a pro rugby game, well lets put it this way, in a capacity stadium of 70000 people, all cheering and singing, you can hear the hits from the far end of the pitch over the noise of the crowd (thinking the last time I saw Wales play Ireland in cardiff, a few years ago).
    The main proposal is to reduce substitutes (so only for injury replacement) and I think this is a good start, as bringing fresh players strategically in the latter periods of play is extremely dangerous to those that have already been playing for the whole game. The game must focus on bringing the impact collision injuries down, if it fails in this the game will die and it will start at the grass roots, where youth players will avoid the sport, and rightly so.

    • In martial arts they evolve the rules to help reduce injury or to try to create some other desirable outcome - make it more TV worthy or broaden participation through the use of weight-classes etc.

      All that seems to happen is that a new sport branches off from the old one with fewer rules and more outrageous impacts

      My point being that people like to participate in and watch high impact sports, so rugby needs to find a way to keep some of these aspects or be eclipsed by some new "Aussie rules mad max style" g

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