Sport and dementia.

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Chippy_Tea

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I have lost count of the amount of rugby players that have recently been diagnosed with dementia which has been related to concussions and footballers who have now got dementia due to heading heavy footballs what i don't understand is why this doesn't seem to affect boxers they are hit in the head hundreds of times in sparring and in fights surely if it caused dementia there would have been multiple cases over the years and the link would have been picked up then.



Ex-Wales star emotionally reveals nine-year-old son accidentally discovered his dementia

Former Welsh rugby star Lenny Woodard was diagnosed a year ago amid a number of former pro players launching a lawsuit against RFU and World Rugby following their diagnosis of brain damage

Former Wales international Lenny Woodard revealed his son inadvertently found out his father had dementia after overhearing his parents’ conversation.

The rugby player said his nine-year-old son was listening to a conversation he was having with his wife in the other room. Woodard is concerned he may not be able to recognise his children as soon as in five years time just 12 months after his heartbreaking diagnosis.

“Myself and my partner were talking in the next room, my kids were playing in the room,” Woodward told the BBC. “My partner was explaining, ‘I want the kids to see you as much as possible, as often as possible and do as many memorable things as possible because there’s a chance in 10 years, 15 years time, you’re not even going to know who they are.’

“And my little boy, Leo, who was nine yesterday, heard it in the next room, he’d been listening to the conversation. He burst into tears, ran into the room, hugged me and would not let go of me for a few minutes.”

In the interview, Woodard warned of how quickly dementia can take hold after suggesting his thought processes are already declining since he was diagnosed a year ago. He continued: “I often forget journeys at crucial stages within it, repeat myself in conversations, repeat myself about half-an-hour, an hour later, forget conversations things I’ve done in the past completely now. Whereas five years ago, 10 years ago, I had what I would class as a perfect recollection of things and it’s deteriorating.

“Ultimately, us as rugby players, we expected aches and pains as we got through our later lives, we certainly didn’t sign up to dementia 30 years earlier than we thought we were going to get from these concussions. It’s making sure that the lessons are learned, we take things forward and it’s safer for the future generation, head injury protocols are abided by and make sure to be as safe as possible.

“Player safety is paramount in all of this. Let’s make the future better and learn from the lessons of the past.”

The rugby world was rattled recently when ex-Wales captain Ryan Jones revealed he had been diagnosed with early onset dementia. Jones was told he had a severe case of probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in December 2021.



As a result, Jones has joined a legal action, led by figures including England World Cup winner Steve Thompson and former Wales international Alix Popham, against rugby union's governing bodies. In total, lawyers for 180 former rugby players have issued formal proceedings against World Rugby, the Welsh Rugby Union and Rugby Football Union.

Other former players such as ex-England hooker Thompson, Dan Scarbrough, Carl Hayman, Neil Clark, Jason Hobson, Lenny Woodard, Neil Spence and Michael Lipman have all come forward. The former pros contend the named authorities were negligent in failing to take reasonable action to protect them from permanent injury caused by repetitive concussive and sub-concussive blows.

Rylands Legal represents over 185 rugby union players with brain damage, as well as 75 players in rugby league as part of a separate potential claim. Those 185 players, professional and semi-professional, are moving ahead with their legal action this week.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/wales-star-rugby-dementia-concussion-27573044
 
My guess is that boxers are a tiny percentage of pro athletes, have short careers, generally, and I think cover ups by the powers that be to protect the sport. There's no way a boxer is going to escape damage whether it's reported or not.
The permanent injuries to the mental facilities happens to football players here enough to be a concern. A helmet might stop a skull fracture but nothing's stopping the brain from bouncing around.
Mohamad Ali could barely speak when it was all said and done.
I don't follow boxing due to its clearly damaging nature but have a double standard when it comes to watching football.
 
What I don't understand is why do players carry on. Marler recently said rhat he forgot his children's names after a knock to his head but he goes back out on the field. These players know risks
 
What I don't understand is why do players carry on. Marler recently said rhat he forgot his children's names after a knock to his head but he goes back out on the field. These players know risks

I think there is a lot of self-deception. We all think that we are invincible until we're not.
 
Is dementia a big thing in American football?
Yes, but I don't know the percentages. Whatever that number, it's probably double or more than whatever is officially reported because of misdiagnosis, undiagnosed or not reported and all those things.
NFL careers are short-lived, something like 3 years. It's usually an extremity, as far as I know, that does the job (knees especially). One could look at the short career as a blessing where the brain is concerned.
The league has made the kick-off distance shorter so the ball goes into the end zone and thus avoiding all those running-start collisions. Stricter penalties for head shots on receivers.
The violence of the collisions at the pro level can't be appreciated on TV as when seeing it up close, kind of like you don't realize how fast the pro hockey players are moving on the ice until you watch one when you're right there. .
 
Aussie rules
I had to look that up (obviously not going to get the full concept of the sport with a 15 second scan) and it sounds a little different than rugby? Either way, very rough sport. I've watched very little but have seen some wear what looks like leather helmets.
Is it considered a weakness of character to wear protective head gear or something?
Not that people don't know the below but it's an interesting evolution:
In ice hockey, first, no head gear for anyone. not even the goalie if you can believe it. Next, helmets but no shields/cages except for the goalie. Helmets were optional for a long time. The argument against face protection for the skaters was that players committing the penalty of high sticking would go way up since there would be little or no concern for hitting someone in the teeth if they had a shield on.
There was a bit of a stigma toward cages/shields in hockey for the longest time.
Hockey players get lit up at higher speeds than any other sport. I'm sure the headaches, concussions, etc. are legion.
 
Only politicians.
Former US president Gerald Ford played college football for the University of Michigan Wolverines.
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Unless your PM is Jacinda Ardern, or some such, I don't think any of us who live in giant, glass houses has much room to speak.
 
Googling more about President Ford, he would have taken a lot of hits in the noggin at U of M and those hits don't always translate into dementia.
Ford was known for being clumsy by the time he got to the Navy at 28 and maybe "loss of balance" is a condition of brain trauma? Of course, he was also known for being clumsy at sixty-one when he took office. Sixty-one seems a little young to be displaying symptoms you'd expect in an eighty-year-old. .
I'm saying maybe the loss of balance situations were the result of multiple head traumas.
It's hard to imagine someone being a star college athlete and clumsy at the same time. These kinds of people (I know more than a few) are good at any sport they try and have far better coordination than average.
 
I used to play baseball, catcher, and I'd get foul tips from time to time in the mask, 90s-mid 90s, but I don't think it's the same since the force was distributed to the padding in the mask. I did get hit in the head with a baseball a few times and there is nothing like that.
 
I feel bad for him. I think he means well though I'd rather just let his legacy being a good sport and a good athlete.
He's a pathological liar, even about stuff that is easily disproven. He's a dupe being taken advantage of by the republican party. Even his handlers say there is something wrong with him.
 
He's a pathological liar, even about stuff that is easily disproven. He's a dupe being taken advantage of by the republican party. Even his handlers say there is something wrong with him.
That made me laugh. I didn't know much about him back in the day, know little about him now. Doesn't sound great.
Maybe he is suffering from something?
Point is, after fifteen seconds, one can see he doesn't belong on a public stage, politics or otherwise.
 

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