Researchers found that playing football in high school doesn't lead to neurocognitive decline later in life.
Many parents don't allow their children to play football in school because they are scared of injuries that their children might suffer while playing. It is also a common belief among parents that playing football in high school leads to neurocognitive decline later in life. Researchers of a new study revealed contradicting findings.
They found that there was no link between years of play and any decline in neurocognitive function among high school football players. The findings were made after researchers reviewed data obtained between August 1998 and August 2001 on 1,289 New Orleans high school football players. This data included information about years of participation, age and concussion history and scores on common neuropsychological tests like digit symbol substitutions (DSS), pure reaction time (PRT) and choice reaction time (CRT). They found that the mean player age was 15.9, and the mean play time, 4.4 years. Only 4 percent of the athletes in the study suffered a sport concussion.
Researchers observed that age directly influenced how the participant fared in the DSS task. The link between DSS tasks and years of playing football was positive when the age factor was controlled.
"The correlation between the number of years of football participation and the performance on the digit symbol substitution test does not support the hypothesis that participation in a collision sport negatively affects neurocognitive function," Dr. Gregory Stewart, associate professor of orthopaedics at Tulane University School of Medicine said. "The implication is that the playing of football is not in and of itself detrimental."
He also said that the new study "reinforces the need to educate high school and college athletes to better understand the importance of being honest about their (concussion) symptoms so that they can be treated appropriately. Many kids play with symptoms that they don't necessarily equate with a concussion."
Findings of the study were presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) in New Orleans on March 14,
