Brain scans of footballers to help brain injuries

Updated May 14, 2012 13:37:00

There are calls today for regular brain scans to be carried out on current and former players across all codes of football in Australia. The University of Queensland researcher, Dr Bradley Partridge says regular monitoring would help combat football related head injuries.

Source: The World Today | Duration: 4min 33sec

Topics: sport, health, medical-research, australian-football-league, rugby-league, rugby-union, american-football, australia


ELEANOR HALL: Brain specialists are calling today for players across all football codes in Australia to have regular brain scans.

The University of Queensland researcher, Dr Bradley Partridge, says monitoring of players would help combat football related head injuries.

In the United States, football players undergo regular checks to keep track of their injuries and assess the long term impact of the game.

Dr Partridge says similar research is needed here in Australia, as Lindy Kerin reports.

LINDY KERIN: In four years with the North Queensland Cowboys, Shaun Valentine suffered seven serious concussions.

After one big hit, the rugby league star suffered a seizure on the field.

In tonight's Four Corners program, he details how those injuries have had lasting effects.

SHAUN VALENTINE: What don't I forget more to the point: phone calls, where I put things around the house, bath, I flood the house probably once a week.

Like in the mornings when I'm going to work it'll take us 15 minutes to find my keys and wallet, and I put them in the same place every day, well I think I do. But I still can't find them.

LINDY KERIN: In the United States, brain injuries have been a big problem in the NFL or American football. Now, in a ground-breaking project, current and former players are undergoing regular scans, using the latest imaging techniques.

One of the researchers, Bob Stern, says the results so far are concerning.

BOB STERN: People who do have a history of repetitive brain trauma as a professional athlete years earlier and who have symptoms now that are consistent with CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy) do show changes in their magnetic resonance spectroscopy, the MRS, showing that there is something wrong. We just don't know enough yet and so this study's going to be going on for the next two or three years to be able to hopefully come up with some real answers to that.

LINDY KERIN: Former rugby league player Shaun Valentine wants to see that research expanded to include head injuries in Australian football.

He's offered to donate his brain to the bank of former athletes in Boston, and it's not just rugby league that's interested in the US research.

Peter Jess is an AFL players' agent. He says similar research is needed here.

PETER JESS: We don't have a study in CTE. It is absolutely critical that we have that and if we're serious about this we must create a brain bank across all codes.

LINDY KERIN: Dr Bradley Partridge is from the University of Queensland's centre for clinical research.

In an article in today's Medical Journal of Australia, he's calling for a comprehensive investigation of football related head injuries.

BRADLEY PARTRIDGE: From a sort of handful of case reports from American footballers, where they've actually done post mortem examinations on their brains; looked at their brains and gone my goodness, these guys have got some of the same types of brain degeneration that old boxers have.

Now some people sort of say well you know our football codes are a little bit different, but in a lot of ways, they're actually very similar, I mean there's still that sort of really hard contact between the guys, and we do know that we see a lot of concussion in Australian football and rugby league.

Now the research that we need to do really needs to be tracking guys throughout their careers and beyond. We don't really have a very good understanding, we don't have these very well controlled studies that would give us the kind of information that we need to know about what precisely the long term effects of say suffering one, or two or more concussions is.

LINDY KERIN: A spokesman for the AFL says all players in the competition who are injured must complete a detailed survey. He says the code has also carried out concussion studies, surveying players from the 1980s.

Meanwhile the NRL plans to survey hundreds of former State of Origin players about their injuries, including concussions.

But Dr Partridge has his doubts about the value of that.

BRADLEY PARTRIDGE: You sort of have to wonder how reliable that kind of data is going to be. If a guy's been asked to recall how many concussions he had, you know, 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, you know, it might not be very precise.

But if you can use sort of techniques that could monitor players regularly throughout their career and beyond, now this might be imaging techniques, other sorts of neuro-psychological measures, then you know we can maybe get a better idea and pin-point this kind of thing.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Dr Bradley Partridge from the University of Queensland speaking to Lindy Kerin.

And the Four Corners program 'Hard Knocks' will be on ABC1 tonight at 830pm.