TV programme, first aired 21st September 2015 at 2030
In recent years, spurred on various high profile cases, the effects of playing certain sports on the brain has garnered increasing attention. In particular, the issue of concussion in contact sports like rugby and American football has attracted a lot of research and media attention. Coinciding with the start of the rugby world cup, BBC Panorama have recently aired a programme looking at this subject.
The engaging title – Rugby and the Brain: Tackling the Truth – is matched by an equally engaging presenter in the form of John Beattie, a former Scottish rugby international. In the course of this half-hour programme, John discusses some of the issues surrounding concussion in professional rugby.
The programme does well to highlight this issue of certain contact sports carrying a higher risk of potential of damage to the brain and attendant consequences. It was particularly interesting to hear about how some within the game feel that the nature of rugby is changing. The feeling is that this change in culture may be resulting in more frequent knocks to the head during each game, with greater emphasis on tackling and “harder hits” since the game turned professional. The programme also highlights a particular difficulty about managing concussions during sport, that of identifying which players need to stop play and which can continue. In the pressured environment of an international match, where players themselves would much rather stay on and play, these difficult decisions need to be made accurately, quickly and by the pitch-side.
The programme also features brief snippets of John Beattie interviewing scientists who have looked into how repeated head collisions may affect the brain. These include Ann McKee (working in the US) and Willie Stewart (working in the UK), who look for evidence of damage in brain specimens donated by former professional American football and rugby players, and how the damage relates to the symptoms these players had whilst they were alive.
This programme is extremely timely and raises many important issues about contact sports and the potential for damage to the brain – about how to protect the players, how to identify who to take off the pitch, how to monitor them, how to identify the players who will go on to have long term problems, how to treat these problems. Certainly these are the questions that scientists and doctors are actively researching.
Ultimately, however, this programme is too brief to adequately address any of the issues that it raises. Importantly, it appears to use the word concussion to cover a whole spectrum of symptoms which may occur after a knock to the head during sport. The symptoms (e.g. confusion, memory problems, poor concentration, mood changes, headaches, dizziness) that are listed to occur with concussion are also those that commonly occur following impacts to the head off the sports pitch as well. That is, concussion is likely to fit into the wider, general spectrum of traumatic brain injury and is not separate from it, an idea discussed in a recent scientific article. Yet, this concept is not at all touched upon.
The issue of sports-related head brain injury is gathering worldwide attention. For example, the American Association of Neurologists have recently reviewed all the scientific literature in this area and published an updated set of guidelines for identifying and managing sports-related concussion. Although raising more questions than it can answer, this programme is nevertheless a worthy and timely introduction to this important issue.
In recent years, spurred on various high profile cases, the effects of playing certain sports on the brain has garnered increasing attention. In particular, the issue of concussion in contact sports like rugby and American football has attracted a lot of research and media attention. Coinciding with the start of the rugby world cup, BBC Panorama have recently aired a programme looking at this subject.
The engaging title – Rugby and the Brain: Tackling the Truth – is matched by an equally engaging presenter in the form of John Beattie, a former Scottish rugby international. In the course of this half-hour programme, John discusses some of the issues surrounding concussion in professional rugby.
The programme does well to highlight this issue of certain contact sports carrying a higher risk of potential of damage to the brain and attendant consequences. It was particularly interesting to hear about how some within the game feel that the nature of rugby is changing. The feeling is that this change in culture may be resulting in more frequent knocks to the head during each game, with greater emphasis on tackling and “harder hits” since the game turned professional. The programme also highlights a particular difficulty about managing concussions during sport, that of identifying which players need to stop play and which can continue. In the pressured environment of an international match, where players themselves would much rather stay on and play, these difficult decisions need to be made accurately, quickly and by the pitch-side.
The programme also features brief snippets of John Beattie interviewing scientists who have looked into how repeated head collisions may affect the brain. These include Ann McKee (working in the US) and Willie Stewart (working in the UK), who look for evidence of damage in brain specimens donated by former professional American football and rugby players, and how the damage relates to the symptoms these players had whilst they were alive.
This programme is extremely timely and raises many important issues about contact sports and the potential for damage to the brain – about how to protect the players, how to identify who to take off the pitch, how to monitor them, how to identify the players who will go on to have long term problems, how to treat these problems. Certainly these are the questions that scientists and doctors are actively researching.
Ultimately, however, this programme is too brief to adequately address any of the issues that it raises. Importantly, it appears to use the word concussion to cover a whole spectrum of symptoms which may occur after a knock to the head during sport. The symptoms (e.g. confusion, memory problems, poor concentration, mood changes, headaches, dizziness) that are listed to occur with concussion are also those that commonly occur following impacts to the head off the sports pitch as well. That is, concussion is likely to fit into the wider, general spectrum of traumatic brain injury and is not separate from it, an idea discussed in a recent scientific article. Yet, this concept is not at all touched upon.
The issue of sports-related head brain injury is gathering worldwide attention. For example, the American Association of Neurologists have recently reviewed all the scientific literature in this area and published an updated set of guidelines for identifying and managing sports-related concussion. Although raising more questions than it can answer, this programme is nevertheless a worthy and timely introduction to this important issue.