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By: EFE Posted Mar 28, 2023, 10:43 am EDT
A study of Hospital Clinic has associated that having been a professional soccer player is a risk factor for developing, decades after retirement, REM sleep disorders and dementia from repeated blows to the head during gamblingwhich advises implementing preventive measures, especially from an early age.
The study, published in the Journal of Neurology, was coordinated by Dr. Álex Iranzo, a neurologist at the Hospital Clínico and head of the clinical neurophysiology group at the IDIBAPS research center, and consisted of to study the data of 228 male patients treated for REM sleep disorders.
Under normal conditions, in this phase the person does not move or speak, but those who suffer from this disorder, who are mainly men over 50 years of age, they make sudden movements, talk and have recurring nightmares.
Scientific evidence has already shown that this type of disorder ends up leading to Lewy body dementia or Parkinson’s disease.
The Clínic study analyzed 228 men diagnosed between 1994 and 2022 with REM sleep disorder and noted that six (2.63%) had been40 years before, professional soccer players, with an average of 13 years of career.
Of the six retired footballers, five of them ended up developing Parkinson’s or dementia with Lewy bodies four years after REM sleep disorder, 44 years after leaving football.
The data was compared with another group of 228 men with other non-REM sleep disorders and none of them had been soccer players (0%), whereas, in the general population, the percentage of men who were professional soccer players for the 60s and 70s of the last century turned out to be 0.062%.
In this way, the researchers found that, although they were a minority footballers who ended up with REM sleep disorders and dementiarepresented a higher percentage than the general population.
Thus, “the sleep disorder in REM sleep is statistically associated with having been a soccer player and later with develop a neurodegenerative disease and, although we do not know why it happens, one hypothesis is the blows to the head”, Iranzo has indicated.
For his part, the sports medicine consultant doctor at the Clínic Gil Rodas has remarked that this and other studies on contact sports corroborate the need to apply preventive measures to reduce blows to the head.
Six days before returning to competition
Rodas has indicated that, in the case of head trauma due to the collision of two players during the dispute for a ball, If no complications are observed, a period of six days before returning to competition should be respected.
In this gradual recovery, you must wait 24 hours and, if there are no symptoms, start from the second day with only aerobic exercise (such as cycling) and progressively increasing physical activity.
protect children
Rodas has highlighted that women and children are more at risk of suffering concussions from blows, so “you have to take more care of them.”
In this sense, it has valued initiatives such as those already applied by the English football federation to limit head butting in minors during training sessions.
Other studies have found that the incidence of head injuries is lower in sports where players wear helmets, such as American football or ice hockeyalthough the experts rule out that this or similar protection measures may be applicable to football.
“It is more a question of education to avoid crashes and promote ‘fair play’, although muscle physiotherapy strategies can also be applied that strengthen the neck and reduce traumatic impact to the head“Iranzo highlighted for his part.
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