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Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

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Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#91

Post by emj »

slg wrote: post #79
mobilefriendly wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well over 1 million American boys and young men play football every year. The game is a rite of passage. Further these studies have implications for head contact that occurs in other sports and in general.

>these studies have implications for head contact that occurs in other sports and in general. Football is clearly the worst offender, but at the high school level the rate of concussions really isn't that far behind for hockey, lacrosse, soccer, wrestling, and basketball. Even a complete non-contact sport like baseball has a concussion rate that is 10% of football's rate. So the question isn't really what percentage…

Most importantly addressing behaviour is the only way to get injuries down, buying more useless protection gear does not work. The cult of the helmet need to stop.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#92

Post by ta4399 »

naeem wrote: post #30
donquichotte wrote: post #16

"The most impressive athletes in any sport in the world are in the NFL" What a ridiculous statement to make! Even probabilistically this makes no sense, since the players are selected out of 3e8 out of 7e9 humans. Check out socker players, marathon runners, climbers etc and you will see that every sport has their very own geniuses.

Marathon runners, climbers, etc you mentioned have a pretty narrow field of physical competence. No way in hell a climber can compare athletically to LeBron James.

yeah, LeBron James isn't an NFL player, so I guess you are agreeing?

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#93

Post by ddorian43 »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #43
tmh79 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from what I understand, it is currently a chemical test that requires a biopsy or tissue sample, which is difficult to get from the brain because well, you remove part of the brain, which is bad.

Right, that is to diagnose CTE post-mortem. But does CTE also cause other phyiscal symptoms which are just indistinguishable from regular Alzheimer's? For instance, would a person with CTE also have visible plaques on an MRI, or is the disease really invisible in the living? The fact that they found CTE in 110 out of 111 NFL players post-mortem should indicate that they had a pretty good idea about which players to p…

Many brain disease don't show on MRI (schizophrenia, depression, bipolar etc).

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#94

Post by whyleyc »

code_duck wrote: post #85
pizza wrote: post #48

"I can't believe people were so dumb about smoking in the 1950s.. how were they so dumb? did they not know it caused cancer?" this is a kinda modern equivalent, imo..

The thing is that both activities were always clearly likely to be harmful, if you took a step back from the cultural perspective that accepted them so thoroughly. Smoking tobacco is inhaling an acrid a mix of chemicals that makes you cough, kind of feel sick and lightheaded, smells awful and leaves a tan stain - it’s not hard to guess that it’s not healthy. Remember that half of people who die from tobacco die from…

"Both activities were always clearly likely to be harmful".

With the benefit of 70 years of medical research this is an easy statement to make, but at the time this was far less clear - smoking was for a long time actively promoted as having health benefits [1][2]

It's easy from a modern perspective to look back and apply our accumulated wisdom, but it was not self-evident that smoking was necessarily bad. Otherwise millions would not have signed up for an early death.

[1]https://www.healthcare-administration-degree.net/wp-content/...

[2]https://i.pinimg.com/736x/40/50/4f/40504f0de983d78f3c0f0b22c...

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#95

Post by tmd83 »

naeem wrote: post #28
thesumofall wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OBJ's "The Catch" is one of the most impressive things in the history of sports period. As someone not familiar with football (not from the US), can someone explain to me what makes this catch particularly impressive? Is it the speed (difficult to assess from a video)?

At that distance, at the complete edge of the field (could’ve easily gone out of bounds), swarmed by two guys, with one hand. Most impressive things in history of sports might be a bit hyperbolic, but it’s pretty incredible.

Impressive but yeah I don't really get that quote. Look at cricket just because I know it. It don't have the fight with other players but talk about the reflex time needed for the close catch, athleticism and presence of mind to make sure the ball doesn't go over the boundary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boHfs7nopHc

But they are all really different. Different sports required different skill calling one set of skills most athletic is really weird.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#96

Post by slg »

emj wrote: post #91
slg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>these studies have implications for head contact that occurs in other sports and in general. Football is clearly the worst offender, but at the high school level the rate of concussions really isn't that far behind for hockey, lacrosse, soccer, wrestling, and basketball. Even a complete non-contact sport like baseball has a concussion rate that is 10% of football's rate. So the question isn't really what percentage…

Most importantly addressing behaviour is the only way to get injuries down, buying more useless protection gear does not work. The cult of the helmet need to stop.

I have said it elsewhere in the thread, but will repeat it and expand on it here. The helmet is a big red herring in the brain trauma debate. The trauma in football is caused by a simple physics problem.

Imagine a person moving at full speed. That person collides with an identical person moving at the same speed in the opposite direction and they both hit each other at their center of mass. These two people now come to a complete stop. Newton's laws of motion say that every part of their body wanted to continue moving forward, but this collision causes a chain of events that stops the entire body. First their torso might stop. Their extremities might lurch forward until they are eventually stopped by the pull of the bodies muscles and ligaments from the stopped torso. But even as the head stops, the brain still has inertia of its own. The brain doesn't stop until it collides into the front of the skulls. This is the type of trauma that is common in football and will occur regardless of whether a player wears a helmet or not.

The reason other full contact sports like rugby aren't as dangerous is because football is unique in that it has regular stoppages that realign all the players in the direction of their objective. You therefore have offensive and defensive players colliding head-on regularly on each play. In rugby this doesn't happen because the game is mostly continuous so offensive and defensive players are often moving in the same direction so collisions are less intense.

For a little video evidence, this [1] is the first result for "rugby biggest hits" on Youtube and this is the first result for "football biggest hits" [2]. Notice how in a majority of the rugby hits either the offensive or defensive players is at a complete standstill before the hit while in the majority of the football hits the players are both moving towards each other. It is a physics and rules problem not a problem with protective gear.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1A06stpydY

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-1MQ0Cnbhs

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#97

Post by powercf »

eru wrote: post #53
shams93 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah my uncle played rugby for over 30 years with no major injuries when you don't have pads it definitely changes the nature of the game and ironically for the better.

Though Rugby can still break your spine, I think?

Yes, mostly at amateur level. Rugby (union) also has problems with serious injury, and it shouldn't be considered a better, or safer American football. At national level many teams play a very direct style - smash repetedly into the opposition until you create a hole. I think the IRB should make whatever rule changes are neccessary to encourage more running-rugby, and make "the hit" less important.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#98

Post by msingle »

katastic wrote: post #86
clort wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your premise is wrong. It sounds as if it should be right, but the framing is awry The players are not really aware of the health risks, furthermore they are young and foolish and impressionable and are following the path of glamour which has been sold to them as youngsters. The sports organization is aware of the risks and are using the players to make vast sums for themselves, they are pushing the glamourous path a…

If the NAACP was selling sex trafficking to cheer leaders to profit from them, we'd care. But because we're destroying the brains and bodies of males with illusions of fame and fortunem and brainwashing them into thinking they're "heroes" and "warriors", it's all the young adult boys fault--even though they're still trying to find their place in the world and the brain clearly still develops until at least 25-years o…

I think you meant NCAA (not NAACP)

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#99

Post by Havoc »

outsideoflife wrote: post #89

For my American cousins I thought I would mention a little more about Rugby Union. Concussion is less of a problem in Rugby than in American football, and this is not an accident. Rugby is addressing this in several ways. 1) Years of rule changes, and stricter enforcement. Now a top level player who tackles someone above the shoulder, or tackles without attempting to hold on (so no clothes-linse or body checks) will…

While the efforts made certainly help there is no getting around the fact that it is an impact sport. That combined with a culture of being tough means that few ‘good’ players escape completely injury free. Short of touch rugby there will still be head impacts and that will have an effect of varying degrees - just maybe not noticeable.

Personally I find it difficult to understand how parents can let their kids play rugby when there is such overwhelming evidence that it’s risky at best.

Re: Concussion doctor says he found CTE in living NFL player

#100

Post by FLUX-YOU »

clort wrote: post #78
golergka wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand these arguments. Are they forcing players to do it? If the players are well aware of health risks and still make decision to play the game, how is the sports organization to blame?

Your premise is wrong. It sounds as if it should be right, but the framing is awry The players are not really aware of the health risks, furthermore they are young and foolish and impressionable and are following the path of glamour which has been sold to them as youngsters. The sports organization is aware of the risks and are using the players to make vast sums for themselves, they are pushing the glamourous path a…

>The players are not really aware of the health risks, furthermore they are young and foolish and impressionable and are following the path of glamour which has been sold to them as youngsters.

I think a great deal of them would still choose to play despite knowing the risks. There are likely neighborhoods where people raise families that are less safe than playing in the NFL.

And I'm sorry, but 25 year olds are not "young and impressionable" any more, so I don't buy that defense. These are adults making adult decisions: http://www.footballperspective.com/2016-av-adjusted-team-age...

What I would buy as a defense is that NFL has a serious amount of propaganda and actively works to suppress medical knowledge which can fool anyone, child or adult.

It is a very similar kind of propaganda for selling military careers by associating it with video games to high schoolers except that you can actually join the US military at 17 with parental consent.

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