It’s finally official! Confirmed as to what we already knew!

[notaleaguefan]

The first reported cases of degenerative brain disease in Australian rugby league players have been described as a "wake-up call" to Aussie athletes taking repeated blows to the head.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a regressive neurological condition found in athletes, military veterans and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma, specifically concussions.

Researchers from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, NSW Health Pathology and the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre believe they have identified CTE in the brains of two former rugby league players.

The players, whose brains were examined after death, were not named in the report published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications.

Both cases were middle-aged former professionals who had played more than 150 first grade games in the NRL over many years, the study said.

https://10daily.com.au/news/sport/a1906 ... socialflow

[Terry]

The first reported cases of degenerative brain disease in Australian rugby league players have been described as a "wake-up call" to Aussie athletes taking repeated blows to the head.

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a regressive neurological condition found in athletes, military veterans and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma, specifically concussions.

Researchers from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, NSW Health Pathology and the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre believe they have identified CTE in the brains of two former rugby league players.

The players, whose brains were examined after death, were not named in the report published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications.

Both cases were middle-aged former professionals who had played more than 150 first grade games in the NRL over many years, the study said.

https://10daily.com.au/news/sport/a1906 ... socialflow

Ummmmmm......and why exactly have you got 3 laughing emoji's at the end of this story pal????

[King-Eliagh]

Jesus, laughing at incidents of brain injury and early death....if that’s what it find funny adumb I think you’ve got a brain injury/deficit far greater than any pro athlete

[AngloFootballLeague]

AngloFL have this problem but have sidetracked research; https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/201 ... on-problem

[AFLcrap1]

So ańother failed thread from the village idiot .

[AFLcrap1]

Disgusting what this mob do .
Yet tools like the Vi point & laugh at RL

SEPTEMBER 2018ESSAYS
Wendy Carlisle
The AFL’s concussion problem

Matt Dea, July 27, 2018. © Adam Trafford / AFL Media / Getty Images
Is the league running interference on the damage concussion can cause?
Last month, it was revealed that head injury–related claims lodged by former gridiron players against the US National Football League (NFL) were shooting way ahead of predictions. It was the latest twist in a story that began in 2011, when 4500 retired players brought a class action against the league, alleging it knew about the dangers of repeated hits to the head but had concealed it.
The players’ class action had been fought largely on the claim that repetitive head injury put players at increased risk in relation to a number of neurodegenerative diseases – not just the early dementia disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is a major concern but can still only be diagnosed at post-mortem. The action was settled in 2013 when the NFL agreed to set aside a kitty of US$675 million in compensation, albeit on the basis of no admission of guilt. In 2016, the NFL admitted to the connection between CTE and gridiron for the first time.
Now, barely a year after US courts had signed off on the final details of the settlement, players’ claims relating to neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; known in Australia as motor neurone disease, or MNR) are triple what had been predicted.
If it seems remarkable that the issue that has threatened American football’s very existence has barely raised its head in Australian Rules football, consider this: according to Australian Football League concussion expert Professor Paul McCrory, AFL players have higher rates of concussion than NFL gridiron players.
The Australian Football League is big business. The broadcast rights deal for 2017–2022 was worth $2.5 billion. Its 700 listed players earn an average salary of more than $350,000.
Australian Rules football is the nation’s biggest spectator sport, and its broadcast appeal depends on the players’ athleticism and the contact nature of the game. While the players are taller, heavier, faster and fitter than they were a few decades ago, the AFL also has an obligation to make the game safer.
In recent years it has introduced more stringent rules designed to protect the head, and heavier penalties for above-the-shoulder contact. Under its concussion protocol, a player must rest for 10 minutes before his club’s doctor conducts five minutes of tests. Since 2014, players diagnosed with a concussion are not allowed to return to play that day. Only players whose symptoms have disappeared can return to play.
The AFL’s official injury report from 2017 noted:
Concussion rates remain relatively stable with approximately seven injuries per team per year (all diagnosed concussions, not just those that cause missed matches). The incidence and prevalence of concussions causing matches to be missed appears to have levelled off in 2017, although concussions continue to be managed conservatively.
Even so, former Sydney Swans club doctor Nathan Gibbs has called into question the AFL’s numbers. “They’re not counting all of them,” he told me.
Over a 14-year period, Gibbs sat on the sidelines, week in week out, “obsessively” counting concussions. His report, which was published last year, put the Swans’ concussion rate at two and a half times higher than the official AFL statistics.
Gibbs thought the numbers might be underreported not just because of the players but also because of the doctors. Fines are imposed on doctors for not bringing concussed players off, especially in the case of delayed concussions.
However, the real story of concussion was buried deep in the numbers of the AFL’s injury report. Eighty per cent of concussed players were declared fit to play the following week, thus not missing a game. **** those who did a miss a game, one quarter were players who had already been concussed that year, and they spent four times longer on the sidelines than players who had injured their hamstrings, knees, shoulders and calves.
There was another brewing issue: what to do with “the bump”? The bump, the hip’n’shoulder, was one of the most sacred elements of the game. A bump, applied legally, allowed a player to knock his opponent off the ball.
A series of decisions by the AFL’s match review officer had decreed that bumps that had caused players serious concussion – from a head knock – could be legal. After West Coast’s Mark Le Cras was let off after a bump that concussed Gold Coast’s Ben Ainsworth earlier this year, Gibbs was furious.
“This is ridiculous,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “The whole anti concussion movement is about protecting the brain of contact sports athletes … And it leaves the AFL open to litigation because they have a rule interpretation which increases the incidence of brain injury.”
There is definitely a “disconnect” in the way the bump is being policed, former Hawthorn player Jack Fitzpatrick told me. Fitzpatrick was forced into early retirement last year after his ninth concussion. “It’s confusing and probably not a great look if a player ends up in hospital and that bump is declared legal.”
Fitzpatrick said he was in favour of keeping the bump in the game, and “the AFL is trying to get it right”.
The AFL has agreed that the risks of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia and ALS/MND are higher for those with brain injuries, and that “players are educated about the risks”. As for the threat of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the AFL would only say it “acknowledges that head trauma in boxing can be associated with neurodegenerative disease”.
As another former club doctor tells me, “Concussion is not good for business.”
“Any sporting organisation in the world would want concussion to go away. It’s a legal nightmare, so they want to make sure they treat it properly when it happens and they want to downplay it big time. And they want all their stats to show it’s not happening very often.
“The irony is, concussion rates in contact sport are not going down. It’s okay to go to a lot of trouble to treat them after [the injuries] have happened, but it’s too late. The damage is done.”
So when is it safe to go back on the field?
Reports of AFL players retiring early due to “ongoing issues with concussion” and on “doctors’ orders” keep coming.
St Kilda star Koby Stevens is the latest, making his announcement in July this year. The 27-year-old had suffered eight concussions in his career and his doctors told him not to risk another one. Brain scans now showed he had brain damage, and he admitted that his penultimate concussion last year had “felt like a bomb had gone off”.
“I’ve taken hits, come back from them strong,” he told Fox Footy, “but to have someone say there’s been changes to my brain, and they can’t really tell you what they are – they’re just there – it’s tough.”
Brisbane legend Jonathan Brown had a similar story to tell when he quit after serious concussion in 2014.
Brown had played 256 games for the Lions and won three premierships, as well as the Robert Rose Award for most courageous player in 2007, 2008 and 2011.
“It’s become evident after my concussion last week,” he said at his farewell press conference, “I don’t respond or bounce back like I used to from those hits.
“I’ve had pretty strong medical advice this week that it was in my best interest to stop.”
The list of other players who have taken their doctor’s advice in recent years includes Sam Blease, who retired in 2015 after two serious concussions, Matt Maguire, Leigh Adams, Sean Dempster, Heritier Lumumba and Justin Clarke. Liam Picken and Ben Jacobs are also both out indefinitely, and Paddy McCartin was recently sidelined with his seventh concussion in four years.
If the league’s concussion protocols were working, why were so many players returning the following week to play? Why were individual players’ concussions getting worse? And why were so many players retiring from concussions?
There has been just one confirmed case of the dreaded CTE in Australia. It was found in the brain of former Manly rugby union breakaway Barry “Tizza” Taylor, who died in 2013, aged 77. He had played 235 games for Manly.

[AFLcrap1]

Geez the village idiot vacated this thread in a hurry .

[Fred]

on my.