NFL New Study Confirms Long-term consequences of concussions

After years of denying the long-term effects of concussions suffered by football players, National Football League has reported that he had commissioned a study that found that Alzheimer’s disease or similar memory-related diseases appears have been diagnosed in the former League players more often then in the national population.

According to a New York Times published on 29 September 2009, “These figures could become Leagues’ first public sign of any connection between Alzheimer’s and football-concussion.” Dr. Julian Bailes, Director, Department of Neurosurgery at West Virginia University School of Medicine and former team physician of the Pittsburgh Steelers, whose study found similar links four years ago, was quoted as saying, “This is a game of changer – the whole debate, the ball now in the NFL. They always say, ‘We’re going to do our own research and now they have. ”

According to the study, researchers conducted a telephone survey of 1,063 retired players who were asked a number of issues arising from the standard National Health Interview Survey, so that rates could be compared with those collected from the general population. The researchers found that 6.1 percent of players age 50 and over reported having received a diagnosis related to dementia, five times the national average above 1.2 percent. Players ages 30 to 49 displayed a rate of 1.9 percent or ten, and nine times the national average of .1 percent.

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