Can Science Save Football?

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football is the most popular sport in

the United States I'm not really much of

a sports guy but once in a while I'll

watch a football game and I can see the

attraction it's a very physical sport

players use their own bodies as blunt

instruments blocking and intercepting

and tackling each other but in recent

years it's come to light that this

aggressive gameplay that has made the

game so appealing has contributed to

traumatic brain injuries

now participation rates in high school

football are falling as athletes choose

to pursue less dangerous activities so

is football doomed or can science save

America's most popular sport good stuff

producer Matt Weber finds out dr. Ann

McKie is groundbreaking research into

the human brain has garnered her near

universal acclaim and notoriety and made

her one of the preeminent neuro

pathologists in her field but she was

first and foremost a football fan

specifically a Packers fan a cheesehead

with an affinity for brains but in 2011

her passion for football and her

expertise with the human nervous system

unexpectedly collided when former NFL

defensive back Dave Duerson sent her his

brain Dave Duerson had played in the NFL

for 11 seasons he won two Super Bowl

rings in a 1986 set a record for most

sacks and a season by a defensive back

derson knew Mickey had been doing

research into chronic traumatic

encephalopathy chronic traumatic

encephalopathy or CTE is a degenerative

neurological disease most commonly found

in people who have experienced brain

injuries CTE can be caused by car

crashes or bomb blasts or anything that

replicates the kind of violent physical

forces at work during these events like

football on average when a football

player gets tackled their body can

experience over 100 G's of force that's

the equivalent of getting in a head-on

collision in a car or taking a ride on a

ballistic missile over their career

players like Durst and experienced the

equivalent of thousands of car crashes

the human body is capable of surviving

these forces if the experience is only

brief a player won't experience much

damage if the forces spread out equally

across his body but this isn't the case

if most of the force ends up on your

head a concussion is a head injury that

results in temporary loss of brain

function often due to a blow to the

physicians going all the way back to the

time of Theodore Roosevelt we're well

aware that football players were prone

to these kinds of brain injuries but it

wasn't until 1994 when the NFL began

seriously investigating concussions

though that research often under played

the severity and frequency of

concussions experienced by NFL players

but the reality is that sustained and

repeated concussions can lead to chronic

traumatic encephalopathy common symptoms

of CTE are reduced or confused brain

function similar to Alzheimer's or

dementia those afflicted with CTE can

experience mood swings and depression

they demonstrate impulsive even

aggressive behavior and often exhibit

poor judgment and many are prone to

suicide there have been several high

profile suicides among former NFL

players the most recent beam former

tight end Aaron Hernandez who hanged

himself while awaiting trial for murder

an autopsy later revealed that at the

time of his death Hernandez was

suffering from an uncommon ly severe

case of CTE for a long time the NFL

denied that there was any link between

football and CTE for years even players

like Dave Duerson disregarded the

troubling warning signs of their own

illness and sided with the league but

thanks to researchers like Ann McKee

mounting evidence to the contrary became

impossible to ignore

by the time Durant's brain had ended up

in her lab Makia performed a number of

autopsies on former NFL players and

diagnosed CTE in dozens of them but

there's no definitive way to diagnose

CTE in a living person doctors can look

at the symptoms and the patient's

history and make an educated guess as to

the cause but an autopsy must be

performed and the brain must be

physically examined Dave Duerson knew

this so in February of 2011 derson took

his own life with a self-inflicted

gunshot wound to the chest

one of his last actions on earth was a

text message to his family asking them

to send his brain to dr. McKee since dr.

McKee began her work 99% of all the NFL

players she has examined exhibited signs

of CTE

derson included and that number isn't

limited to professional football players

autopsies of college and high school

football players display the same kind

of brain damage

ever since news of these brain injuries

reach the public youth participation in

football has been in decline parents

concerned about safety or steering their

children away from football into other

sports

additionally professional football

players are choosing to retire earlier

in an effort to stave off any further

brain damage if this continues America's

most popular sport might soon disappear

for lack of players but could science

say football the modern football helmet

was designed to prevent skull fractures

and brain hemorrhages it doesn't however

do anything to stop concussions the main

cause of chronic traumatic

encephalopathy but newer helmets might

be able to do just that if getting hit

by a 250-pound linebacker is like

getting hit by a car it only makes sense

to look to automotive design when

developing a stronger safer helmet

that's just what helmet manufacturer of

Isis has done with the zero-one the zero

one is a football helmet with crumple

zones cars are designed with crumple

zones so that the force of a collision

is absorbed in certain areas of the

car's body instead of your body so when

a player takes a hard hit to the toilet

the shock is immediate the helmet stops

moving or even reverses direction while

the brain keeps moving forward due to

inertia effectively making the players

brain collide with the interior of his

own skull a helmet with crumple zones

would slow down and spread out the

effects of the impact so that the brain

wouldn't experience as much of a change

in momentum and reduce the chances of a

concussion but the zero-one is much more

expensive than a typical football helmet

and his high price will probably keep it

out of the hands of anyone without a

contract with a professional football

team in addition to new helmet designs

helmet manufacturer Redell has developed

a head impact telemetry system for hits

hits is a network of accelerometers

affixed to the football helmet whenever

a player takes a hit the hit system

calculates the severity of the impact by

measuring the g-forces that the players

head is subjected to since an

acceleration of over 100 G's increases

the risk of concussion hits can notify

sideline staff of these high velocity

impacts in real time allowing them to

take the player out of the game and

evaluate him immediately hits can also

calculate the location of the impact and

keep track of the number of impacts of

player takes during the game but hits

doesn't prevent concussions and it

hasn't been widely adopted by the NFL

yet researchers at UCLA and the

University of Chicago are also working

on methods of detecting CTE in living

players since the build-up of neural

proteins called tau proteins can be a

sign of CTE using brain imaging

technology to identify these proteins

could give doctors a way to diagnose

traumatic brain injury before it has

progressed too far

while this technology has shown promise

it's still in the experimental stage and

it doesn't change the fact that the very

mechanics of football can cause brain

damage which

means the game itself might need to

change and it already has to some extent

the NFL has instituted new rules

prohibiting certain types of hits that

target the head or neck if a player

loses his helmet on the playing field

the play must immediately stop in 2010

the NFL moved the kickoff from the

30-yard line to the 35 yard line

reducing the amount of space between

teams and therefore reducing the amount

of time the players had to get up to

speed to make a tackle

the kickoff has been called the most

dangerous play of the game the most

concussions happen during a kickoff so

reducing the amount of times it happens

during a game should reduce the number

of concussions but there is even talk of

eliminating the kickoff entirely with

Giants Cohen or John Mara saying that

the league may be evolving that way

losing the kickoff would be a huge

change to football it is a play often

employed when the stakes are high and

time is short last-minute kickoff can be

the difference between winning and

losing that makes it not only important

to the strategy of many football teams

it is an exciting and iconic feature of

the game but it's also dangerous so the

NFL has to decide what is more important

preserving gameplay or safeguarding the

health of their players football has

never been a nice sport but it has

always been evolving the first American

football game was played in 1869 just

four years after the end of the Civil

War to modern audiences the game would

have been mostly unrecognizable even in

those early days football's violent

nature was a source of controversy

serious injuries were common even

fatalities in 1905 the game suffered 19

deaths in a single year a statistic so

shocking at the time it prompted

President Theodore Roosevelt to

intervene and discuss ways of making the

game safer the gameplay would be tweaked

here and there throughout the first half

of the 20th century making it safer and

more enjoyable slowly football began to

resemble something like the sport we see

today change has been a constant force

in football's history it has propelled

it forward and given it the momentum to

become the number one sport in America

it would be risky for football to stop

changing now as so many human brains

have taught us the chance of injury is

greatest when an object's momentum

brings it in contact with a rigid

opposing force so what do you think is

football doomed can it change and if it

does change what will it look like in

the future don't forget to Like and

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