New Delhi: a striker who scored over 200 goals In an illustrious career for the likes of Notts County and West Bromwich Albion and even played for the England team, Jeff Astle died in 2002 at the age of 59, Allegedly He suffered from Alzheimer’s late in life.
His daughter Don, remembering the death of her father, was Told A local UK paper in 2015: “He died in front of his whole family…it was the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen.”
Media reports Dating back to 2002, the coroner during the investigation linked Astle’s death to a head trauma during his playing career, setting a precedent declared A “death from industrial disease” verdict.
But it wasn’t until 2014 that Glasgow-based neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart specifically determined the medical cause of Astle’s death as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
BBCthose days, relaxed me CTE is a “boxing brain condition”, as this neurodegenerative disease was common in boxers who had received repeated head injuries.
In other words, CTE was the result of Astle doing the best she could during her playing career – repeatedly leading football. Headers were an important part of his playing style and he was a goal threat from his debut for Notts County in 1959 until his retirement from professional football in 1977.
Read also: Teenage girls live in Delhi’s Sangam Vihar and dream of football. even if it means taunting
Field Studies, Jeff Astle Foundation
Jeff Astle’s detailed retrospective diagnosis was a shot in the arm for the increasing movement of phasing the header out of the football.
In addition to funding research, foundation Founded by Astle’s family – with the help of Dr. Stewart’s Football Impact on Lifelong Health and Dementia Risk (FIELD) study – Advocating for institutional change.
Led by Dr. Stewart, the FIELD Study Has Been Leading Research On the link between diagnosed herder and neurodegenerative diseases among footballers regularly publishing new research and studies since 2019.
Although preliminary results from the FIELD study research showed that footballers were three and a half times more likely to suffer from neurodegenerative disease, a more direct link was established in a condition-specific study of the FIELD player. free in August 2021.
The findings showed a lower risk of neurodegenerative disease for goalkeepers than for outfield players, with defenders marked as most affected, thanks to the centre-back’s remarkable strategy of repeatedly turning the ball away from oncoming attackers. is consistent.
Another peer reviewed study published 2019 found thousands of former football players were suffering from neurodegenerative disease later in life, including five members of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning squad.
Many football associations and nations, such as the United States, Scotland, and England, have either banned the act of ball-heading for children under the age of 12, or Started Trial to phase out the act among young players.
While the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) free With comprehensive guidelines on header protection for young footballers, FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) is yet to come out with universal guidelines in this regard.
The road ahead is long and the impact of header removal in the future will be far-reaching, fundamentally changing the way football is played on the pitch. However, even suggestions and policies banning children’s participation in the act have historically been met with “mixed reception”. Guardian was informed of in 2020.
What do experts say
So how does heading the ball actually affect a professional footballer’s mind in the long run? According to experts in the field of neuroscience, the answer lies not in individual instances of acute head trauma but in repeated sub-acute trauma.
“The brain is floating in a fluid inside the skull. It’s inertia — when your skull suddenly stops, your brain is still moving and can hit the skull. More than commuting, it’s a shear.” force and rotational angle is what kills neurons and causes more subtle, neurological damage,” says Dr Anurag Gupta, a Gurugram-based neurosurgeon with Narayana Health.
But Dr Gupta says this damage is less pronounced than tremors caused by incidents such as head collisions or hitting the goalposts. Rather, it is these subtle effects that lead to loss of neurons and subsequent dementia over a period of 10-15 to fifteen years, which is synonymous with the average duration of a professional footballer’s career.
While symptoms such as confusion, memory loss, disorientation, emotional instability and failure to perform routine tasks may become apparent after retirement and resemble standard cases of dementia, Dr. Gupta explains that imaging methods such as MRI or CT scans only work in the brain. shows atrophy. and makes it challenging to accurately diagnose this type of neurological damage in footballers.
“Only through autopsy or brain biopsy after death do you see any evidence of CTE [in footballers]….children were found to be especially prone to this problem as the brain is not fully developed,” he added.
For youth or college-level players striving for future professional careers, an improper technique in heading the ball can also risk permanent damage, as experienced by Dr. Surjit Nandy, a neuroscientist working in Healthcare AI. who played college-level football in the United States. Recreational football continues to be played in Delhi.
“As a center-back at an American university in the early ’90s, I was made to mark the striker and throw the ball away over and over, 20 times per match. If I didn’t go for the header , then I would have been replaced, but my technique was flawed.
“Instead of using my forehead, I sometimes head the ball from the fontanelles—a fairly vulnerable part of the skull—and feel dazed immediately afterwards. People say that’s good, but I often worried Because trauma to the brain is a bad idea,” says Dr Nandy.
According to Dr Gupta, the line of headers per training session and the amount of headers acceptable to professionals per sport remains a gray area. But the efforts of the Jeff Astle Foundation and the FIELD study have established a base level of evidence linking Heder to “lower mental functioning.”
But for Dr. Nandy and many others, the header issue ultimately boils down to sports trade-offs, as “no one has really discovered any medical benefits”, but on the field, it can be found in a variety of playing styles. adds up.
This diversity is reflected in the goal scoring records of the two most prolific forwards in the 21st century – Lionel Messi. 24 major goalsSeven of which led his team to victory, while Cristiano Ronaldo scored 112 header goalsOut of which 29 won the match for their team.
“While I think heading the ball obstructed parts of my mind, by banning him you are essentially banning Cristiano Ronaldo and favoring Lionel Messi. If you think the future of football is more about Messi, that’s well and good, but I don’t see it that way,” Dr. Nandy told ThePrint.
A Manchester United supporter, Dr. Nandi is firmly in the ‘Ronaldo camp’ and even jokes about the number of headers scored by Nemanja Vidic throughout his career while suffering a prolonged head trauma. Recognizing this would have put the Serbian centre-back at risk.
Dr Gupta sees “effective and recreational qualities” in both styles of the game, but he agreed with Dr Nandi that “it is too early to ban outright” the title in professional football,
However, he added a caveat – “Players should be aware of the potential dangers. Children should definitely be prevented from going until they are old enough.”
(Edited by Amritansh Arora)