American Football first... After US District Judge Judy Brody recently ruled that the consolidated multi-district concussion litigation cases against the National Football League (NFL) in the USA were to be transferred to a labour arbitrator, the NFL agreed to a $765 million settlement. More than 4000 current and ex-NFL players, the plaintiffs in this case, allege that the NFL has misrepresented the long-term health dangers associated with on-field head injuries. Either way, the debate about the potential long-term consequences of concussion will play out in the American media for a number of years to come, ensuring that the term chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive neurodegenerative condition that is thought to occur as a consequence of repetitive mild traumatic brain injury, not only remains part of our clinical lexicon, but is also embedded in social media postings (#CTE on Twitter, Heads Up! CTE on Facebook, 1740 YouTube videos, and 740 000 Google references), where the messaging today is simple and consistent: contact sport damaged my brain and it didn't have to happen. Ice Hockey follows..... Recently the National Hockey League (NHL) has been sued by the family of a former NHL player in what has been described as æan explosive wrongful death lawsuitÆ that allegedly resulted from a lethal combination of recurrent head injuries, in-game fighting, over-prescribed painkillers and CTE. American Football and Ice Hockey are not the only sports to be associated with CTE. Boxing was implicated in the very first medical descriptions of dementia pugilistica in prize-fighters in 1928, while in soccer, the possibility of significant brain injury as a result of repeated heading of the ball has again been reopened in the context of the CTE debate. Will Rugby Union? Rugby Union is a collision team sport played by men, women, boys and girls in more than 100 countries across five continents. The seven-a-side version of the game will return to the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016 and is anticipated to be the catalyst for a further expansion of the game around the world. The game's origin is attributed to a young schoolboy at Rugby School in England who, while playing soccer with fine disregard for the rules of football first took the ball in his arms and ran with it, thus originating the distinctive feature of the Rugby game. While running with and passing the ball are key features of the game, the contest for possession which is embedded in the game's charter is most clearly seen in the frequent contact events that characterise the modern game. Forceful tackling of the ball carrier by the tackler or tacklers, aiming to drive him/her backwards is an integral part of the game (http://www.sportsconcussion.co.za/sportconcussion/video-channel/#featured-yt-vids-page) with in excess of 200 tackles being seen each game. Although tackling that involves contact above the shoulders of the ball carrier is not allowed under the Laws of the Game, the head and brain are certainly not immune to trauma. Inadvertent head-to-head impacts occur, as do head collisions with the ground and opposition feet, hips and knees, accounting for a large proportion of concussions seen in Rugby.
© Copyright 2014 British Journal of Sports Medicine. BMJ Publishing Group Ltd of the BMA. Kaikki oikeudet pidätetään. / Kääntänyt https://www.DeepL.com/Translator