At the Budo Journeyman, there was a very good post about head injuries in sports in general and combat sports in particular. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.
There has been an ongoing discussion involving scientists, medical people and those with a vested interest in their favoured sporting activity.
The usual suspects; (sports most likely to…)
Boxing.
It might have started with boxing.
If you have any knowledge of the history of the sport at professional level you might be aware of the tragedies of the boxers Michael Watson who suffered catastrophic brain damage in 1991. Or Welsh bantamweight Johnny Owens who died from a dramatic head injury received in the ring in 1980. The debate has continued ever since.
As early as 1949 a British neurologist, Macdonald Critchley wrote a paper called, "Punch-drunk syndromes: the chronic traumatic encephalopathy of boxers", but at that time it was assumed that it was only boxers, and other sports escaped scrutiny.
Football.
Then there was the discussion around professional footballers who suffered accumulated brain damage just through heading the ball. Certainly, from the 1960’s onwards. But, back in those days, the way footballs were designed and the heavyweight leather involved, it’s not surprising. Recent research with historical elite-level players revealed a shocking statistic; that outfield players (not goalkeepers) are 50% more likely to develop dementia than a control sample.
Rugby.
Rugby was the next sport to be put under the microscope. The debate centred around young players, and again, headline-grabbing injuries, broken necks and lesser injuries like concussions were splashed across newspapers.
Martial Arts.
For some reason the oriental-based contact sports seemed to escape the scrutiny, despite in the UK a couple of deaths in the early days of ‘full contact’.
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