Researchers first began to look seriously at the potential link between dementia and football following the death of former West Bromwich Albion and England striker Jeff Astle in 2002 at the age of 59.
It was initially believed Astle died from Alzheimer’s disease, but the coroner at his inquest ruled his brain had been damaged by heading heavy leather balls. In 2014, Professor Stewart carried out a new examination of the former player’s brain and found he was killed by a specific pathology linked to brain injury exposure, known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
He said the condition was frequently mistaken for dementia. In parallel work led by Professor Stewart, CTE has been described in three-quarters of the brains of former contact sport athletes, including former amateur and professional footballers.
The issue of brain injuries and sport returned to the spotlight in recent years with several of England’s 1966 World Cup winning team being diagnosed with – and dying from -neurodegenerative diseases. Ray Wilson passed away in July 2018, with Martin Peters dying in December 2019. Jack Charlton died in July 2020, with Nobby Stiles passing away last October. A month later it emerged that Sir Bobby Charlton is also suffering from dementia.
Worryingly, the latest findings from the groundbreaking FIELD study, published today, show that modern players are at potentially greater risk with more heading in the game today than half a century ago and the speed which the ball travels in today’s game having a greater impact.
Professor Willie Stewart, lead author of the study and consultant neuropathologist at the University of Glasgow, said: “The older, leather balls were heavier than the modern, lighter balls which changed performance. The slightly heavier leather balls travelled through the air slower than the lighter ones – so the risk impact forces are transmitted more by the speed than the weight of the ball.
“So with the faster modern balls, and more heading in the modern game than 50 years ago, potentially the [dementia] risk could be greater.”
“Some of the players in our study would have played solely with the leather ball, some with a mixture of leather and the modern synthetic ball. There’s no evidence across that anything that has changed in the game up to the 1990s has changed risk. To know that we would need to wait another 20 years at least, and that’s too long.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3fmpUf4
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