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Is heading dangerous? Some scientific studies associate it with memory loss and brain damage in the medium term.
By hitting a soccer ball with the head we could approach a situation of brain damage. It may seem exaggerated to put it this way, but some research that is carried out in different parts of the world agrees on this.
You mean we should never nod again out of caution? The truth is the repetition of this gesture is associated with a deterioration of cognitive functions short, medium and long term. This does not mean that a single head butt determines a stroke, for example.
We have to sift through expressions and understand that head-to-head is a risk factor for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and brain damage can mean little memory loss or a delay in reflex responses. Anyway, knowing the danger, we will understand why precautions must be taken, especially in children.
What is chronic traumatic encephalopathy?
When the act of hitting a ball with the head occurs, brain damage may go unnoticed. If these damages accumulate, the footballer is at risk of presenting a chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which it’s nothing but neurodegeneration.
This results in a loss of functional neurons due to trauma. The repetition produces rupture of blood vessels, accumulation of inflammation between neurons and mild states of shock.
It is a type of injury that athletes do not notice or hide, for fear of affecting his career. A transient state of confusion after heading can be taken as normal or expected. After a few minutes, the footballer recovers and continues playing. You will never see a doctor or have imaging studies done to find out what damage is there.
It is also true that these minimal damages are not always detected in MRIs or in the most routine CT scans. In other words, a footballer may consult for discomfort after a match and not be properly diagnosed due to the lack of expertise of the health team.
Two other situations similar to chronic traumatic encephalopathy are second impact syndrome and post-concussion syndrome. The first is a succession of events that begins with a trauma that causes a small brain injury, which goes unnoticed. In a second impact, after a short time and almost in the same place, the original lesion enlarges and obvious symptoms appear.
In post-concussion syndrome there is a progressive development of deficiencies cognitive, emotional and sensitive for weeks or months after a concussion. If we relate it to hitting a ball with the head and having brain damage, we would have the case of a footballer who is removed from the field on a certain date due to a concussion, but who presents neurological signs a month after or even perhaps a year after the event.
Scientific evidence on brain damage from headshots
All of this may seem exaggerated at first glance. Thousands of footballers head balls all the time around the world. Is it so serious?
To know, various investigations sought to establish damage thresholds and association relationships between the pitch of a ball and cognitive changes due to brain problems.
We are going to see in detail some recent scientific studies on the subject. These 2 that we present were made considering soccer and its athletes. But there are other disciplines that involve repetitive head trauma, such as rugby and boxing, for example.
1. The brain changes immediately after nodding
In 2016 a study in the magazine EBioMEdicin from The Lancet. The authors experimented with repeatedly heading 19 amateur soccer players. A special machine threw the balls with a medium force so that the participants finished off with the skull.
Then the brain activity of the athletes was measured at the time of stopping the practice, the next day, at 2 days and at 15 days. The results revealed that in the first measurement there were already changes in the electrical activity of the organ.
But not only this. They also did short and long-term memory tests, which were deficient in the players studied at first.
The good news is that both electrical activity and memory recovered later. Already in the measurements at 24 hours the improvements were perceived. This would suggest that there is no permanent brain damage from headshot, although the problem of accumulating effects cannot be ruled out.
2. After 20 auctions the problems appear
Magazine Science and Medicine in Football published in 2020 an investigation that was concerned about the effect of head butts on young footballers. 30 athletes between 18 and 21 years old who had to head 20 consecutive times were studied. Cognitive ability tests were carried out before and after the session.
These tests showed that the 20 spikes were sufficient to modify the participants’ mental responsiveness. The tests took longer to be solved after the session and errors appeared that were not in the previous resolution.
A clarification made by the authors is that measurements were made with different balloon pressures, which generated somewhat different results. Anyway, cannot attribute to the higher inflation pressure a worse prognosis when heading because the acceleration of the object also changes. What does arise is the existence of alterations both with a highly inflated ball and with a less hard one.
How to reduce the risk of brain damage when shooting with the head?
One of the first steps taken to reduce the risk of brain damage from headshots was prohibit this practice in training with children. The European Union of Football Associations (UEFA) launched a detailed guide to regulate this.
The guidelines and suggestions for member countries state that 12-year-olds should not practice heading outside of their league matches. In this way, based on a study carried out in 8 European countries, it was proposed that the risk is minimal in infants who limit their shots with the skull.
Several countries have already taken the recommendation and applied it in their territories. But not only in the European Community. In America the issue is discussed and specific guidelines have been drawn up in some states, following the same line of thought as UEFA.
For adults the question is different. Soccer is a sport that does not contemplate the protection of the skull for its game, as does the rugby or the hockey for archers. That is why it is recommended that medical teams pay more attention.
Just as a footballer should ask to be removed from the field if he feels bad after a header, the coaches at the side of the field have to be able to make the same decision. For him National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) of the United States, this crystallized in a Contusion Management Plan that is required of places where sports with risk of head trauma are developed.
So do you have to stop heading to avoid brain damage? No. What you should do is improve your technique, not do repetition sessions head-butting in practice and leaving the field to be examined if you feel discomfort after heading.
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