Do head injuries and headers in football lead to future brain damage? A discussion lacking appropriate scientific diligence
Abstract
SCIENCE AND MEDICINE IN FOOTBALL, 2018 VOL. 2, NO. 1, 1–2 https://doi.org/10.1080/24733938.2017.1416950 EDITORIAL Do head injuries and headers in football lead to future brain damage? A discussion lacking appropriate scientific diligence Several sources of media seem to agree that football (soc- A strategy to address the three different clinical scopes cer) impairs brain health due to repeated head collisions appropriately is of utmost importance and can possibly and headers. Unfortunately, some of our scientific collea- involve the following: gues contribute to this view by unduly “marketing” their results, possibly to gain visibility and reputation (and third Ad a party funding). Many neurophysiological and imaging find- ings derived from cross-sectional studies are currently over- The possibility of impaired brain development from heading rated; they should be more cautiously interpreted because represents a unique football-specific problem for which no of unknown clinical implications and lack of external validity valid derivations can be made from findings in other sports. as well as missing replication of results. Obviously, besides Moreover, occurrences within children and adolescents are true concern there is a lot of interest-guided reasoning in more alarming because an informed decision about their parti- this debate. It is probably not coincidence alone