25 percent of football players will suffer from cognitive issues
 

http://news.yahoo.com/nfl-says-quart...6119--nfl.html

It's kind of crazy. I love football but knowing I'm watching potential brain injury patients kind of takes some of the fun out of it.

Trade chronic brain injury at 40-50 years of age for 20 years of living the high life? I don't know. probably not worth it.

I think there will be a significant decrease in the number of kids playing organized football in the future.

Just my opinion, do we need more of these anxiety inducing posts when we already have plenty of issues that are much closer to home ? This article does not even accurately present the cause of this high risk.

Members are welcome to post what they consider to be relevant posts here.
Not everyone may agree with the perspective, but that does not mean it is not of interest to others.
As long as it does not violate our guidelines(which this does not) it can be posted.

Kevboy posted an article about football players wanting to get hit In the head instead of the legs. I didn't see such an angry response to that. And I thought it was relevant and his prerogative.
Unless one of us is a pro player that I don't know about...why would this inspire anxiety in any of us?

The difference was kevbo did not use such a unavoidable heading. He just said the comments made his blood boil. If we did not want to click through and read the article or thread, we could avoid the stress. This thread heading will be unavoidable until it drops of the index page.

Bro, where I come from if someone posts a heading saying "this really makes my blood boil"....I'm gonna definitely open that.

I'm a pretty anxious person and even I don't think I'm ANYWHERE near a football player who gets clocked five thousands times in a career by a BEAST coming at him full force. I'm pretty sure the people on this board can make that distinction.

But I hold you in high regard and will be even more careful in the future.

I am surprised it is only 25%..

I bet I know the 25 percent. Receivers definitely! And Quarterbacks. oddly enough the brutal offensive and defensive linemen DO the hard hitting and probably fare best.

When you don't have to live with cognitive issues 24/7, you are not likely to understand the impact. Depression is tough enough. Trying to get one's mind to think in a productive way is far worse.

I was talking with a man with knees that are beyond repair about the NFL players who would rather take a head hit than a knee hit. I commented that I would prefer to live as a double amputee than have to deal with the cognitive issues I experience.

Can you imagine talking at length to someone and not remembering that person when they approach you 10 or 15 minutes later ? I met most of my new neighbors today during a yard sale. When some of them walked by later, I had no clue who they were. My short term memory skills leave me feeling like a total idiot. I watched my father and father-in-law and two acquaintances succumb to dementia.

But then, this is just my experience and opinion. It's probably not worth much.

I'm speaking personally here as usual on the forums. I'm not a speaking Mod. ;)

For what it's worth, I just saw that the article was posted in the Health News Forum today as well, so it's not something that was just dragged up to scare people. It's topical.

I think if people want to read it they should be able to because it is actually about brain injuries and concussions. It's a bit like Sharon from NZ looking for help because it's difficult to find help where she lives, and I suggested she contact a Rugby organization if she couldn't find any help anywhere else. Sadly, there seems to be a lot of research going on (money spent) in the area of sport as has been discussed before. Some medical centres only deal with sport related concussions.

Anyway, I'm sorry if everyone is having a bad day, but I really think that everyone's experiences and opinions are important here.

Actually, linemen often fare the worst. They suffer far more sub-concussive impacts that quarterbacks and receivers. Some quarterbacks have taken a beating but linemen take a beating just about every play and many during practice. Quarterbacks are protected during practice.

We have a few different codes of football here (apart from soccer that is) and the two full on body contact ones are rugby league and rugby union. Very, very few of them wear any head gear and no other protection at all. It's quite horrifying to watch them being spear tackled into the grass.

The gridiron (I take it that's NFL) players seem to have way more protection than our players have although obviously the helmets don't do a very good job. I'd hate to see the statistics for here.

I think research AND current ways to deal with the head injury issue are both important. I've said before between the soldiers coming home and the NFL issues, there is a lot more money and attention being put towards what is arguably a very important issue.

It might not be tomorrow but in ten years maybe it will help a whole generation of people and we'll still be around, all of us, I hope to benefit.

I didn't post an article, partly out of fear of the reception, about google putting 1.5 billion dollars!! towards Alzheimer's AND TBI over the next ten years. It might lead nowhere but they're trying at least.

Rugby may have some more dangerous concussions, especially head to head but American football has a much higher number of head impacts. Studies show 800 to 1000 sub-concussive impacts per season in addition to the full concussions.

As rugby and even lacrosse become popular here in the US, those head injury statistics are starting to show up.

Helmets offer a false sense of security. They are getting better but still not preventing the damaging impact forces.

markneil, yeah, when I said "sadly", I didn't mean it was sad the money was being spent in that area, I meant it was sad that sport is so dangerous. I didn't word it well.

Actually, Google is not funding this research. A Google funded start-up (Calico, a company focused on life extension technologies) in cooperation with two other companies are going to build a $500 million research center to research drugs related to P7C3 compounds to see if they can develop and market these potential drugs for use with neuro-degenerative diseases such as ALS, Parkinson's, depression and age-related neurocognitive impairment.

A P7C3 compound has shown promise in rats after they were subjected to brain injuries.

So, basically, Calico is hoping to commercialize any drugs that come out of this research. Calico will be contributing up to $750 million to this effort to be matched by another bio-tech investment firm.

The iffy part of this will be whether they have any impact on TBI treatment, especially since TBI is only a small part of the possible target market.

We can hope.