Ah ok. I just skimmed through a few posts and thought that’s what everyone was debating
I’ll see myself out
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I think a lot of the over the top angst might be coming from a place where some people don’t support the ability of the players to sue the league or clubs for injuries they incurred while they played football. A bit of the old “you knew the risks” view.
I recognise that there are a lot of people who still think this, but their numbers are diminishing.
It’s amazing to think that in the US, it’s considered that the NFL were quite prehistoric with how they dealt with the concussion issue - and that the AFL is probably ten years behind that.
I think that type of thinking applies to todays players. Everyone knows the risk of head hits and concussions etc
Back then nobody knew the lasting effects of that sort of stuff. The big question is- did the doctors/medical people at AFL land know about it and sweep it under the rug or they just didn’t know.
The issue with the NFL was, supposedly they knew about it for some time, but did nothing about it. The movie about based on that whole thing “Concussion” is so eye opening about what the brain goes through when these guys hit each other.
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NFL knew about it an hid it. AFL most likely knew about it and have acted on it, whether they acted too late or after hiding it for a number of years, that’s what we will find out at some point.
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In other news, the AFL has updated their Concussion “Guidelines” to a minimum 12 days until return-to-play (up from the previous 6 days) after suffering a concussion.
The first article that appeared about it on the AFL website (https://www.afl.com.au/news/543220) makes the point that a player who gets concussed during a prelim would automatically be ruled out of the GF the following week.
The second article that appears about it (https://www.afl.com.au/news/543223) doesn’t mention the Prelim\GF factor, but does mention that “where a player is withheld from a game with a presumptive diagnosis of concussion but on subsequent assessment the club doctor and/or specialist supports a change in that diagnosis, the subsequent assessment must be discussed with and can only be approved by the AFL Chief Medical Officer.”
To me it seems that as per usual the AFL have the rule in place to cover themselves, but are also including clauses that allow them to keep their options open wrt optics and marquee players missing the GF… All that said, they’re only “guidelines” anyway.
If only there were records of some sort that might help with that.
I love how there is recently discovered new evidence that concussions last 4 weeks … and the AFL extends the time out to 12 days.
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When boxers of UFC guys get knocked out. How long is it until they can fight again?
I’ve read that study.
It simply says that the average RTP for people in the military is 28 days post-incident.
Even the conclusion from the author is just “amateur athletes seem to take longer to recover than elite athletes” or something like that.
edit
This is presuming I read the same study the guy in the AFL articles is talking about.
Are we talking about the same study? This article refers to it, and says it was done on AFL players.
Found the article. Small sample size.
Nah definitely not that one.
The one I found followed 500-odd US military post-concussion looking at time to return to full duties.
It’s the only thing I could find from 2018-2021 that had to do with concussions and indicated a 4 week turnaround so I presumed that was what was being referenced.
This is the relevant table:
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No, the Monash one measured a particular serum (NFL) in the brain, which indicates the brain is damaged. They tracked it and found that even after patients felt fine again, the NFL is still elevated. Indicating the brain is still injured and may therefore be more susceptible to further injury.
They found that it didn’t drop for a number of weeks after the concussion. Indicating it could take up to 4 weeks for the brain to actually get over the concussion.
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Thanks.
I’ll check it out later.
Keen to see if they reported on players with multiple concussions (amongst a few other things).
Had a bit more of a read of that study.
I’d definitely put it in the “good initial study to demonstrate that it’s worth doing more studies, but not useful clinically on its own”.
As you mentioned the sample size is really small (the women to the point I’m not even bothering with interpreting the results), and as they mention in the study it’s unknown if elevated serum markers actually correlate with neuronal injury.
I still don’t think that can be the study Pearce(?) has been referring to though as it only has a 13 day follow up and therefore we don’t know if it actually does take 28-29 days to recover (with regards to whatever metric he’s using for recovery).
I also suspect that a few outliers with extremely elevated Nfl and Tau throw out the numbers post concussion as the majority of participants are near their baseline levels post concussion (circled in red in the picture). And really oddly some even display less biomarkers after a concussion than before (work that one out!?)
If you were going to do more research on this you’d want
- a study that correlates levels of Nfl and tau with neuronal injury (although I’m not as confident as the study authors about tau)
- if the above proves to be the case, undertake a longitudinal study that recruits a shitload more participants and tracks them until their marker(s) return to baseline while also collecting data on subsequent concussions and whether that changes how much their markers increase.
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One of the challenging issues is trying to differentiate between knocks to the head from playing sport or the like and the degeneration of brain cells through ageing which can be exacerbated by lifestyle issues - Doubt we’ll ever get a definitive answer.
I would say, the seven (7) year rule of legally destroying medical records, is very convenient for the AFL and other sports. Unless the players themselves got copies of their medical records which is a good thing to do but its highly likely they didn’t and may have thought someone else did.
It is what I have done because my medical records. I was part of a brain plasticity experiment @ the Nuclear Medicine part of the Heidelberg Rehab in the eighties, nineties and noughties. Electric shock to head 600 volt of DC driving a Melbourne tram and a head on car crash @ 90 kms both cars. Had we not asked for copies and kept our own records then there would be no records now.
There is call to get the AFL to have mandatory blood tests after each game to detect if they have suffered a ‘ding’ to the brain which is similar to a minor concussion.
They linked it to Shane Tuck scenario… didn’t present with a lot of concussion but had a lot of the minor ones which rattle the brain like a car crash at 45km/h.
Can’t see AFL or AFLPA allowing this.
I mean, if they wanted to get super serious they’d have to do the tests daily if the players are doing any contact at training.
You’d just end up with players perennially sitting around waiting for blood test results.
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■■■■ the AFL, that is all
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Given Zantuck’s initial fishing expedition was publicised in Dec 2018, and we’ve heard nothing since, are we to assume that this absolutely rolled-gold, bulletproof case got shot down in flames?
Or he got a trillion dollar payout in a sealed settlement?
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