From their first professional season, rugby players see their blood flow to the brain and their cognitive functions weakened because of blows to the head.
- Among the cognitive functions involved are the ability to reason, remember, formulate ideas and perform mental gymnastics.
- The disorders are not only caused by one or more concussions but that any shock to the head, even if it seems minor, but carried out repeatedly, can have consequences.
- A professional player suffers nearly 11,000 shocks per season.
The practice of rugby at the professional level has an impact on the health of players from the first professional season. Researchers from the University of South Wales followed a team competing in the United Rugby Championship – a league of top Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Italian and South African clubs – for an entire season and tested players during the season. pre-season, mid-season and end of season. The results, published on August 5 in the Journal of Experimental Physiologysuggest that a rugby player can have his brain affected in his first season at professional level.
20% of concussions in training
With scrums, rucks and tackles, the physical health of rugby players is put to the test during matches. The researchers found that all these shocks lead to a decline in cognitive functions and a drop in blood flow to the brain in players from their first season. Among the cognitive functions involved are the ability to reason, remember, formulate ideas and perform mental gymnastics.
The researchers found that the disorders are not only caused by one or more concussions but that any shock to the head, even if it seems minor, but carried out repeatedly, can have consequences. Professional players would be more concerned because they chain more matches, preventing them from recovering well between two shocks. Added to this are training sessions where, according to the UK Rugby Union, 20% of concussions occur.
A burning question in the world of rugby
The issue of brain damage in athletes is increasingly present in the world of rugby. Currently, around 200 former players have taken legal action against the game’s governing bodies World Rugby, Welsh Rugby Union and Rugby Football Union. Some of those former players have been diagnosed with early dementia and say authorities failed to protect them from the risk of concussions and head impacts.
Among them, Shane Williams, a former Welsh winger, is one of the most active on the subject. He recently pleaded for limiting the number of substitutions during a match, arguing that newcomers would cause more damage against tired opponents and therefore more at risk of injury.
11,000 shocks per season
The former Welsh rugby star, retired since 2014, wondered if his brain had been affected by the game.”I always ask myself the question: has my memory deteriorated because of my age? I always wonder – is it because of my age? Or is it because I’ve taken a beating over the years?”, he wondered at the BBC.
Previous studies have estimated that a professional player suffers nearly 11,000 shocks per season. Added to this is a growing body of scientific evidence showing that concussions are not the only impacts that affect the brains of athletes, but also the accumulation of blows and the volume of contact events.
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