NPR: Landmark study finds 1 in 4 NFL players developed brain trauma
By Becky Sulivan
Jonathan Elias is a huge Bills fan. His two young sons are out on the field, Dom and Caleb.
we asked whether he'd seen the new study that put that stark number on CTE and former NFL players. Elias hadn't, but he's always been worried about the risk of brain injury for his sons.
“Oh definitely, with all the concussions and everything that can happen, all the movies and articles and everything else we see.”
Not every kid who plays football will get CTE - far from it. The risk of developing the disease goes up the longer a player's football career goes on. Still, though, CTE has been found in the brains of some people who only played through high school, and about 1 million American high schoolers will play 11-on-11 football this fall.
Dr. Greg Canty is the director of sports medicine at Children's Mercy in Kansas City. He's been seeing patients for about 20 years now. These days, he gets a lot more questions than he used to from young athletes about football and concussions.
“When I first started practicing sports medicine, those conversations were ones I may have wanted to have as a physician, but no one else really interested in hearing it as much.”
Canty saw the new study, of course. He points out that the cohort of former NFL players the researchers looked at had largely played their pro careers a long time ago, like in the 19702, 80s and 90s.
“And so I don't know how to take the data that was recently released and apply that to my young athletes, other than trying to let their families know there's probably never been a safer time to play youth sports because of the recognition when it comes to concussion, because of the recognition we now have.”
Football, he says, definitely does have more risk for injury than non-collision sports. But there's benefits, too, he says. Research has shown better mental health outcomes for kids who play team sports.
Read the full article via NPR