Concussions and Long-Term Health

Problems

Organizations continued to publish study results that linked repeated concussions and long-term

health problems contrary to reports by the MTBI Committee. A 2003 report by the Center for the

Study of Retired Athletes at the University of North Carolina, for example, found a connection

between numerous concussions and depression among former professional football players.

Further, the Center's follow-up study in 2005 associated both brain impairment and Alzheimer's

disease with retired NFL players who had histories of concussions.

In addition to the studies that continued to contradict the work of the MTBI Committee,

renowned experts and sports journalists wrote critical reviews of the Committee's studies. Dr.

Robert Cantu of the American College of Sports Medicine noted bias in the committee's

extremely small sample size and held that no conclusions should be drawn from the NFL's

studies. In an ESPN Magazine article titled "Doctor Yes," Peter Keating criticized Pellman and

the MTBI Committee's work and argued that the "… Committee has drawn a number of

important conclusions about head trauma and how to treat it that contradict the research and

experiences of many other doctors who treat sports concussions, not to mention the players who

have suffered them."

More studies continued to associate repetitive head injuries with neurological problems later in

life. Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz, Director of the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes in the

Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of North Carolina, analyzed data

from a 2007 study of nearly 2,500 former NFL players. He found about 11 percent of the study

participants suffered from clinical depression, with a threefold increased risk in former players

who had a history of three or four concussions. The following year, the NFL commissioned the

University of Michigan Institute for Social Research to conduct a study involving more than

1,000 former NFL players. The results reported that Alzheimer's disease or similar diseases

appear to have been diagnosed in former NFL players vastly more often than in the general

population at a rate of 19 times the normal rate for men ages 30 through 49. The NFL responded

to these results by claiming the study was incomplete.

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Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia