CTE - Should We Be More Concerned?
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Well without being stupid, should WE be more concerned. As I 70yo and stopped playing quite sometime ago, for me the anser is no.
But if I was still playing I probably would feel the need to be concerned, and with a hell of a lot of sports,. I would suggest anyone getting a few bad head knocks would need to really strongly their choices going forward. -
If you watch any of the Japanese school teams at the Sanix tournament, they almost all wear headgear, irrespective of position. I assume that is a directive from the JRFU for players of that age to limit the effect of any major head knocks. The majority of the Japanese girl/women's sevens players do the same.
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@nonpartizan rugby is a violent sport played by violent men. There is no way to play it, especially in the forwards, but probably these days also in teh midfield, without embracing the violence.
Yes we've got rid of the punches and the worst of the high shots, it's a significantly safer sport than it was even 20 years ago from those two perspectives alone.
But for every concussion caused by getting a deliberate smack in the head there are probably 20 caused by all the incidental contact that make up a rugby game. Rugby is a game played at low height with your head forward. Its very nature is front on combat. And if you want to win games of rugby there is absolutely no way to do it other than to beat the guy in front of you in a test of force.
And the higher up the levels you go, the higher the violence and force of those confrontations is.
Without fundamentally changing the nature of the game, you cannot eliminate head "trauma" for want of a better word. In fact i would go a step further and say rugby league has a better chance of achieving this dream than rugby union, due to the absence of the breakdown, mauls, and scrum force. Even without those it is still an impossible dream. Where you have massive units moving at each other at speed, head contact is inevitable.
I've said it over and over, if sports want to get serious on head injuries then they need to save players from themselves rather than each other. You can red card every minor head contact that happens in a game and still do less to prevent these future issues than just by making mandatory stand downs longer and more easily triggered.
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@mariner4life Great post and totally agree, there should be good records kept and perhaps longer progressive stand downs the more HIA you fail.
I guess with all of these sports the money for the top athletes makes the choice for the individual player even harder. That is why the governing body needs rules that enforce longer stand downs and perhaps forced retirement if they sustain x number of concussions.
Fingers crossed the test doesn’t take too long to develop.
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@Nevorian said in CTE - Should We Be More Concerned?:
Seems to have been an increase recently in suicides amongst the AFL community and players coming out admitting to mental health issues. The collisions in AFL more likely worse with more players taken out in the air and hitting the ground harder
Coincidentally I was just randomly thinking about Christophe Dominici and wondering if his suicide wasn't a function of undiagnosed CTE. His wiki says he suffered from depression but maybe that was caused by playing rugby.
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@mariner4life said in CTE - Should We Be More Concerned?:
@nonpartizan rugby is a violent sport played by violent men. There is no way to play it, especially in the forwards, but probably these days also in teh midfield, without embracing the violence.
Yes we've got rid of the punches and the worst of the high shots, it's a significantly safer sport than it was even 20 years ago from those two perspectives alone.
But for every concussion caused by getting a deliberate smack in the head there are probably 20 caused by all the incidental contact that make up a rugby game. Rugby is a game played at low height with your head forward. Its very nature is front on combat. And if you want to win games of rugby there is absolutely no way to do it other than to beat the guy in front of you in a test of force.
And the higher up the levels you go, the higher the violence and force of those confrontations is.
Without fundamentally changing the nature of the game, you cannot eliminate head "trauma" for want of a better word. In fact i would go a step further and say rugby league has a better chance of achieving this dream than rugby union, due to the absence of the breakdown, mauls, and scrum force. Even without those it is still an impossible dream. Where you have massive units moving at each other at speed, head contact is inevitable.
I've said it over and over, if sports want to get serious on head injuries then they need to save players from themselves rather than each other. You can red card every minor head contact that happens in a game and still do less to prevent these future issues than just by making mandatory stand downs longer and more easily triggered.
Good post. Can't argue with any of that.
Hopefully the game can continue to evolve to the extent that whilst the risks can't be entirely eradicated they always err on the side of protecting players over everything else.
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They need to make rule changes to de-emphasise the box kick and aerial contest aspect, and to increase the value of being extremely fit rather than fucking massive.
Also need to make the current card lottery consistent, and harsh. And at a minimum HIA the victim every time.
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@reprobate said in CTE - Should We Be More Concerned?:
They need to make rule changes to de-emphasise the box kick and aerial contest aspect, and to increase the value of being extremely fit rather than fucking massive.
Also need to make the current card lottery consistent, and harsh. And at a minimum HIA the victim every time.
One thing I think could be looked at is substitutions. Go back to the old way which is subs are essentially for injuries and that's it. If you made it so players have to have the stamina to get through 80 minutes it incentivizes fitness over strength and power.
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@Bovidae said in CTE - Should We Be More Concerned?:
If you watch any of the Japanese school teams at the Sanix tournament, they almost all wear headgear, irrespective of position. I assume that is a directive from the JRFU for players of that age to limit the effect of any major head knocks. The majority of the Japanese girl/women's sevens players do the same.
Well in late 80s/early 90s WR actually at one stage were banning headgear, as the thoughts were it wasn't that good of a protection , and were worried that people expected them to do more than they and so wern't been as careful.
Can't remember the wording or when it died back out. -
@nonpartizan revisiting subs is an option - the changes there have definitely moved the game away from what it was and towards bigger players and bigger impacts.
ball in play more:
less penalties, more free kicks.
faster scrums (and/or time off until the ball goes in).could even look at making the game 10 minutes longer.
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@reprobate said in CTE - Should We Be More Concerned?:
@nonpartizan revisiting subs is an option - the changes there have definitely moved the game away from what it was and towards bigger players and bigger impacts.
ball in play more:
less penalties, more free kicks.
faster scrums (and/or time off until the ball goes in).could even look at making the game 10 minutes longer.
Good suggestions.
I think always tweaking the laws (and the way the game is reffed and coached) to reward cardio and enterprising skilful rugby is in the best interests of the sport. It seems super rugby this season have done that in speeding the game up and keeping the ball in play more. I think that is a good development.
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@Bones said in CTE - Should We Be More Concerned?:
Only issue with making players play longer is that could likely lead to even more injuries with fatigued players going past breaking point and/or making more mistakes.
agreed. fatigue may lessen the force but increase the likelihood of something sloppy happening.
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For those interested, Ross Tucker is the World Rugby concussion specialist and has done lots of work on risk factors etc, think he was behind the smart mouthguards trial as well. What they've seen in those trials is that the head accelerations are not always from head shots, and concussion is caused by the brain bouncing off the skull, irrespective of direct impact.
re the subsititutions point, the data shows that fatigued players get injured and head injuries more often than fresh players so whilst you could make the case for the reduction of subs on the basis of the spirit of the game etc, i'm not sure you can on the basis of reducing injury etc
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@Dodge This is what makes it so challenging, how many brain bouncing do players endure without knowing it. I think that is one of the problems the guy in the podcast mentioned, he just didnt know how many concussions he had received until he suffered serious concussion symptoms.
Do you have any idea of the stand down periods and do they get longer the more HIA you fail, are there any rules in terms of how many you are allowed per season etc?
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Professional Level (Elite Rugby):
If a player is diagnosed with a concussion, the minimum stand-down period is 12 days.Exception: This can be reduced to 7 days if the player is:
Diagnosed by an independent match-day doctor,
Managed within the Elite Player Welfare Standards,
Cleared through a carefully monitored GRTP by a team doctor, and
Symptom-free and performs normally in cognitive testing.
This "7-day return" is only possible in very specific professional environments with stringent oversight.
Community and Youth Rugby:
The minimum stand-down period is 21 days, with no early return option, to better protect younger or amateur players. -
@Dodge Thanks for that, seems strange that pro players can be 7/12 days whilst the rest are 21, do pro players have extra padding in their heads? Seems they are most at risk of long-term damage. I wonder if one day we will look back and wonder why we accepted 7 days was ok.
So, nothing in relation to the number of HIA fails over seasons or careers and length of stand down?
7 Days seems more of a system to get the player playing the following week then for player safety if that makes sense.
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I think the difference in stand down periods is based on the quality of medical care and review that the professional players have access too, which allows the diagnosis to be more accurate.
As far as i'm aware, the number of HIA fails etc a player has does have an affect on their individual RTP protocols but i'm not sure there are any mandatory extensions of those periods.
