Personal Injury Law

New NFL Study Confirms Long-Term Consequences of Concussions

By Bruce Stern

After years of denying the long-term effects of concussions sustained by football players, the National Football League has reported on a study it commissioned that found that Alzheimer's disease or similar memory-related diseases appeared to have been diagnosed in the League's former players vastly more often then in the national population.
 
According to a New York Times story published on September 29, 2009, "These numbers could become the Leagues' first public affirmation of any connection between Alzheimer's disease and football-related concussions.'  Dr. Julian Bailes, Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at West Virginian University School of Medicine and former team physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose research found similar links four years ago, was quoted as saying,  'This is a game-changer - the whole debate, the ball's now in the NFL's court.  They always say, ‘We're going to do our own studies' and now they have.' 
 
According to the study, the researchers conducted a phone survey of 1,063 retired players who were asked a series of questions which were derived from the standard National Health Interview Survey, so that rates could be compared with those previously collected from the general population.  The researchers found that 6.1 percent of players age 50 and above reported that they had received a dementia-related diagnosis, five times higher than the cited national average of 1.2 percent.  Players ages 30 - 49 showed a rate of 1.9 percent or nineteen times that of the national average of .1 percent.

You can read the full article online here.

Full post as published by Traumatic Brain Injury Law Blog on October 02, 2009 (boomark / email).